Does Florida Have Its Own Loch Ness Monster? How a '35-foot Serpent' Has Terrorized Residents for Nearly 2 Centuries
Florida has been dealing with an apparent monster for almost 200 years.
May 2 2025, Published 7:45 p.m. ET
The Loch Ness Monster in Scotland known as "Nessie" may get all of the love and attention, but Florida has been dealing with its own water beast for almost two centuries.
The "35-foot horned sea creature" – given the name "Johnnie" – is believed to be hiding in St. Johns River ever since residents first laid eyes on it in 1849, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
A '35-foot monster' is said to be hiding in Florida's St. John's River.
That particular sighting left a ship's captain completely shook, describing what he saw as “an immense sea monster," referring to it as a “serpent” and a “monster of the deep.”
According to the captain, he and his crew saw that the creature “lifted its head, which was like that of a snake, several times out of the water and at such times displayed the most of his body, exhibiting a pair of frightful fins several feet in length.”
Since that notable sighting, many others boaters have spotted the mysterious monster including a 1953 sighting by local river guide Buck Dillard and his fellow fishermen.
"He looked at us for about a minute, then he went under the water and swam away from us," Dillard said at the time.
He added: "We waited about two hours in that same spot to see if he would come up again, but he didn’t.”
That same year, one witness described a “beast that swims like a fish and walks like a dog,” with “a 10-inch horn in the middle of its head.”
Despite the sightings, some skeptics believe it is simply a herbivorous manatee, or a sea cow.
Some skeptics believe the mysterious creature is simply a sea cow living in the river.
“If you’ve ever been up in that country and have seen a cow come up with eelgrass and weeds all over its head, you might imagine it was a monster,” Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commissioner John Dequine relayed.
He added: “They stick their heads under the water to get the eelgrass.”
However, hardcore believers are still all about Johnnie, theorizing it is a prehistoric creature that somehow survived into the modern age.
Meanwhile, the legend of Nessie – one of the most famous cryptids (a creature that is believed to exist but has not been proven) – kicked off on May 2, 1933, when a sighting of it made the local news.
Inverness Courier, a newspaper, wrote a local couple spotted “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” That was enough for the story to spread like wildfire and lead to a Nessie obsession.
That same year, Hugh Gray would snap the first photographer of the monster, although many claimed it was simply his Labrador playing in the water.
Scotland's Loch Ness Monster – or Nessie – is still the most famous mysterious creature.
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In 1934, London physician Robert Kenneth Wilson would have eyes from around the world land on Scotland after he took his own photograph, which seemed to show a creature with his head out of the water.
Only decades later, in 1994, was the photographed exposed to be a hoax as one of the participants, Chris Spurling, revealed the truth while on his deathbed, confessing it was simply a toy submarine.
That, however, has not decreased curiosity as Scotland has completely embraced the attention even, celebrating the legend with the Loch & Land Festival.
