What would you do if the log you were watching in a mountain lake suddenly started swimming? That’s what happened to a crew of railroad workers in 1920, and it was only the beginning. For over a century, witnesses have reported a large, serpent-like creature in Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho. They’ve described it as 30 to 40 feet long, with a head like a dinosaur, humps like a camel, and skin that looks like armor plating. The creature put a tiny Idaho resort town in TIME Magazine, earned a name through a national contest, and became so beloved that even Idaho Fish and Game said they’d protect it.
Her name is Sharlie. And the people of McCall wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Lake
Payette Lake sits in the mountains of central Idaho near the small town of McCall, about 100 miles north of Boise. Named after Francois Payette, a French Canadian fur trapper who worked the central Idaho mountains in the early 1800s, the lake was carved by glaciers during the last ice age. It covers over 5,000 acres of cold, clear alpine water, surrounded by towering pines and Douglas fir.
At its deepest point, near the northwest shore, the lake plunges to 392 feet. That’s deep enough to hide just about anything.
The Native American tribes who spent summers in Long Valley, the broad mountain valley where the lake sits, were said to fear its waters. Their oral traditions spoke of an evil spirit dwelling in the depths. Whether those stories reflected something the tribes had actually seen or were simply a way of expressing respect for a powerful body of water, they established a sense of mystery around Payette Lake long before any European settlers arrived.
1920: The Log That Moved
The first documented sighting by western settlers happened in 1920. A crew of workers cutting railroad ties near the upper end of the lake noticed what appeared to be a large log floating in the water. Logs in a mountain lake weren’t unusual, so at first, nobody thought much of it.
Then the log started moving.
According to the account, the object undulated through the water, creating a wake as it swam away from the workers and disappeared. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a log. The encounter became a topic of local conversation, but at the time, McCall was a small and remote community. The story didn’t travel far beyond the valley.
For the next two decades, the creature existed mostly as local rumor, something people talked about but nobody could prove. That changed in the summer of 1944.
1944: Slimy Slim Goes National
The summer of 1944 turned Payette Lake’s resident mystery into a national sensation. Beginning on July 2, multiple groups of people reported seeing a large creature in the lake near an area known as the Narrows, a rocky passage between the north and south sides of the lake.
The first report came from a group of six witnesses at Lakeview Camp. They described the creature as “moving through the water in an undulating fashion,” with its head raised out of the water “much like the periscope of a submarine.” They also noted a tail fin that reminded them of an airplane rudder. Among the six witnesses was Boise attorney Homer Martin, who happened to be the lawyer who had drafted the 1938 initiative that created the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. This was not a man prone to wild stories.
As the summer went on, more sightings piled up. Local residents, vacationing soldiers, and lumber mill workers all reported encounters. The descriptions were remarkably consistent: a creature 30 to 35 feet long, with a dinosaur-like head, pronounced jaws, a series of humps along its back, and skin that appeared almost shell-like in texture.
The creature was dark or black with shiny skin, and it moved through the water fast enough to leave a wake comparable to a small motorboat. The locals called it “Slimy Slim.”
The story reached TIME Magazine, which ran a column in its August 21, 1944, issue about “an enormous sea serpent glubbing about in Idaho’s Payette Lake.” By the magazine’s count, 30 people had claimed to see the creature’s “periscope-shaped head” since July 2. Four days later, the story appeared in the Mediterranean edition of The Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army’s newspaper, meaning American soldiers fighting in Europe were reading about an Idaho lake monster between dispatches from the front lines.
Tiny McCall, Idaho, had become an international curiosity.
The Sightings Keep Coming
The reports didn’t stop after 1944. In September 1946, a group of 20 people reported a sighting. Among them was Dr. G.A. Taylor of Nampa, Idaho, who described what he saw in measured terms: “It appeared to be between 30 and 40 feet long and seemed to keep diving into the water. It left a wake about like a small motor boat would make.”
In 1947, two Oregon fishermen, including F.M. Christiansen, steered their boat toward a large wake with three distinct humps visible in the water. The creature appeared to be roughly 40 feet long. Christiansen, who had been visiting the lake for 20 years, told reporters he had always thought the sea serpent stories were nonsense. “I sure changed my mind,” he said.
How “Slimy Slim” Became “Sharlie”
By 1954, the creature had been spotted enough times that residents of McCall decided their local monster deserved a better name than Slimy Slim. A. Boone McCallum, editor of the local Star News, launched a national naming contest. The prize was $40, and the judging panel included Idaho Governor Len Jordan and several state legislators.
The winning entry came from an unlikely source. LeIsle Hennefer Tury of Springfield, Virginia, wrote to the paper: “Why don’t you call him Sharlie? You know, like ‘Vas you der, Sharlie?'”
The line was a reference to a popular catchphrase from Jack Pearl’s old-time radio show, where the comedian played a character known as Baron Munchausen. The name stuck immediately. “Slimy Slim” was retired, and “Sharlie” became official. The residents also decided that Sharlie was female, and she has been referred to as “she” ever since.
The naming contest did more than give the creature an identity. It transformed Sharlie from a frightening unknown into something closer to a community mascot. McCall didn’t just tolerate its lake monster. It embraced her.
Later Sightings
Reports continued through the following decades. In 1956, Dabney Taylor said Sharlie swam near his boat, leaving a substantial wake. He described a creature with a long neck, a small head, and two horn-like protrusions on top. In 1961, Jayne Brown reported seeing Sharlie twice in a single day while fishing. She described a dark green body with black spots and a long tail ending in a fin.
In 1985, Tom Grote reported spotting Sharlie from a plane while flying over the lake. He described three humps and estimated the creature at about 40 feet long. That same year, Idaho Fish and Game fisheries biologist Don Anderson told The Star News that tests on Payette Lake had turned up no evidence of a large sea serpent. But Anderson didn’t seem too disappointed. “Maybe he’s just smarter than us,” he said. “I want him to be there, and if he is, we’ll protect him.”
The last well-documented sighting came in the mid-1990s, when Kate Wolf of Boise reported seeing the creature from a pontoon boat. She described humps “with peaks like the back of a dinosaur.”
@nickdangerously Idaho lake monster sighting of SHARLIE the Twighlight dragon 🐉 #sharliethetwighlightdragon#slimeyslim#lakepayette #mccall#mccallidaho#lakemonster #lochnessmonster #share#whatisit?#foryou#viral #videos#cryptozoology #idaho#idahome#parody ♬ original sound – ⛔️NICKDANGEROUSLY⛔️
What Could Sharlie Be?
The most common skeptical explanation is that witnesses were seeing a large sturgeon. White sturgeon can grow to impressive sizes, and they are native to the Snake River system, which connects to Payette Lake via the Payette River. Before dams were built on the Snake River in the late 1970s, a sturgeon could theoretically have migrated upstream into the lake. Sturgeon are prehistoric-looking fish that can live for decades, which might explain a creature that seemed to appear across many years.
However, even the largest sturgeon don’t typically reach 30 to 40 feet, and they don’t display the humps, periscope-like head, or shell-like skin described by multiple witnesses. A sturgeon might explain a brief, distant sighting, but it’s harder to reconcile with the detailed descriptions given by groups of 20 or more people at close range.
Another explanation involves seiches, a natural phenomenon where rapid changes in atmospheric pressure create standing waves on enclosed bodies of water. A seiche can produce unexplained surface disturbances and wakes with no visible cause, which could account for some reports of mysterious movement on the lake.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of misidentification. Floating logs, groups of otters swimming in a line, or unusual wave patterns could all trick the eye under the right conditions. Payette Lake’s depth and cold, dark water create conditions where visual perception can be unreliable, especially at a distance.
Then again, misidentified logs don’t usually have dinosaur heads and pronounced jaws.
In 1980, cryptozoologist Gary S. Mangiacopra published a research paper titled “A Preliminary Report of Possible Large Animals in the Payette Lakes of Idaho” through Bloomsburg State College. He explored the possibility that an undiscovered species could survive in the lake, while noting that Payette Lake’s relatively small size would make it difficult to support a breeding population of large animals.
Sharlie’s Legacy
Whether or not something genuinely lurks in the depths of Payette Lake, Sharlie has become inseparable from McCall’s identity. The creature appears as an ice sculpture at the annual McCall Winter Carnival. Local restaurants serve “Sharlie Burgers.” Businesses and summer camps bear her name. Souvenir shops sell Sharlie-themed merchandise. In 2007, Boise author Lynda Johnson published a children’s book titled Sharlie, blending the legend with messages about nature and conservation.
Historian Barbara Nokes Kwader of the Nelle Tobias Research Center in Roseberry compiled a detailed history of the sightings that remains one of the most thorough accounts of the Sharlie legend. The McCall Area Chamber of Commerce embraces Sharlie as a point of local pride, listing the creature’s history on its website without a trace of embarrassment.
What stands out about Sharlie compared to many lake cryptid legends is the attitude of the community. McCall never panicked about its monster. The town never tried to hunt Sharlie down or debunk the sightings out of existence. Instead, the people named her, claimed her, and made her part of the family. Even the state’s own Fish and Game department expressed a kind of hopeful affection for the creature.
No photograph of Sharlie has ever been produced. No video, no physical evidence, no remains. The deepest parts of Payette Lake remain dark and cold and largely unexplored. And for the people of McCall, that seems to be just fine. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
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