Announcer: Idaho Experience is made possible with funding from the James and Barbara Cimino Foundation, devoted to preserving the spirit of Idaho.

From Anne Voillequé and Louise Nelson.

From Judy and Steve Meyer.

With additional support from the J.A.

and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, the Friends of Idaho Public Television, the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporationfor Public Broadcasting.

Mark Iverson, Author, Tour Guide: What's in the darkness or what's behind those walls, what happened just inside those walls?

A perpetual interest throughout human history, you know, has been what's in the darkness.

NARRATOR: Haunted houses.

Creatures in the forest, in the sky, in the water.

Why are we drawn to things we can't know, these tales of the monstrous, the mysterious, the mythic?

Iverson: And I think these stories linger because it has to do with the unknown.

The greatest unknown that there is, you know, after death, people want to know.

[TOUR CONVERSATION] NARRATOR: Mark Iverson and his partner Jeff Wade are experts on the mysterious and macabre.

Murders and haunted houses highlight their weekly Idahistory tours █ and their newly published book.

Jeff Wade, Author, Tour Guide: There's definitely a cautionary aspect to that, kind of serves the purpose of teaching us and our children not to go out into the water by themselves because there could be a monster out there to grab 'em.

Iverson: Nobody wanted to be in the water with Jaws, but everybody wanted to see Jaws, right?

Like, yeah, "Thank goodness I'm not that fellow."

I think I've tapped into an uncertainty and fear right now.

When times are scary, sometimes you want to jump right into the maelstrom.

I just think people have always been interested in the, in the darker things, you know?

NARRATOR: We summon our courage to explore a few of Idaho's Myths, Monsters and Legends, on Idaho Experience.

[HOWLING] [SOUND OF WATER] KEN DEIBERT, Mccall Resident: It was one of those beautiful spring days.

No wind, no boats on the lake.

And one of the guys in the group said, "I see Sharlie."

And sure enough, here was this black object in the water.

And following the black object was a wave.

And then when it got further up towards where Cougar Island is, here, the black object in the water disappeared and the wave just stopped.

There's something that occurs in this lake that is very difficult to explain.

I believe that Sharlie lives in this lake.

NARRATOR: They call her Sharlie, and she is a beloved tradition at Payette Lake.

Sharlie parades through town at the Winter Carnival.

Tourists in McCall can buy a stuffed Sharlie at Shore Lodge.

Children play on Sharlie on the beach.

At the library, they get to see Sharlie, and, of course, read about Sharlie.

Craig Vroom, author: So the next time you go to the lake, clear and blue, keep your eye out for Sharlie.

She's got her eye out for you.

Vroom: I'd already written a couple of books.

I looked around and I decided there's no children story about this, Sharlie.

So I decided, you know, maybe it would be fun to write a Sharlie book and make Sharlie into a fun character that the kids would like.

Narrator: Craig Vroom's book imagines Sharlie as a relative of the Loch Ness Monster, who gets rescued by a pair of young detectives.

For some of his research, he consulted the Sharlie files at the McCall Library.

Vroom: Yeah, everyone seems to have stories about Sharlie.

If they don't have personal stories, they have stories that they've heard from other friends and family.

So the story continues and I'm glad to see it and I'm very happy if I can be just a little part of that.

Narrator: Tales of creatures in Idaho waters began with the region's Indigenous people.

The first recorded reports of a monster in Payette Lake date to the 1920s.

Darin Young, Researcher and BSU History Student: And between 1942 and 1944, sightings of a lake monster skyrocketed.

Young: The monster's anywhere from 35 to 60 feet long.

It has 3 to 4 humps.

It ranges from a color of dark green to different shades of yellow.

Most people say it does look like a serpent, but it doesn't have scales.

So some people will say that its head is like a periscope, that it has a snout like a pig, that it has ears like a lynx, that it looks like a bulldog.

All these different animals.

Narrator: In 1953, 200 people entered a newspaper contest to rename the creature, which had been known as the Twilight Dragon and Slimy Slim.

In McCall, Sharlie is more mascot than monster█ a familiar presence at the ice sculpture contest.

Karen Hibbard, sculptor: I don't think anybody's ever had her busting through the frozen lake.

So if she is in there, that would be how she'd breach.

Just a fanciful idea.

Narrator: Karen Hibbard is a veteran McCall ice sculptor.

She grew up visiting Payette Lake.

Hibbard: I think it's, you know, a nice thing to believe that there is a benevolent, you know, creature, that it's mysterious and no one knows about.

And you always have that tiny little hope that maybe she actually exists, you know?

Narrator: Other lakes have mythical monsters too, including Coeur d'Alene and Pend Oreille.

At Bear Lake, on the border with Utah, the monster is everywhere █ in lakeside shops and cafes, on T-shirts and stickers and coffee mugs ... even chocolate bars.

Narrator: The Bear Lake Monster is even getting a star turn.

Filmmaker Brandon Smith was raising money in hopes of getting his Bear Lake monster movie finished in 2023.

The crew at Epic jet ski rentals tell their own version of the story.

Kamryn Murdoch, Rental Staff: We get people asking about the Bear Lake monster all the time.

We just tell them the Bear Lake monster's real and it's swimming around in there.

Cader Dunkley, Rental Staff: Yeah, I had someone come up like two days ago and they get on the jet ski and they're like, so is that Bear Lake monster real?

I was like, yeah, it's there and better watch out.

Murdoch: And then we have people come back because we tell them it's real and they're like, "Oh my gosh, we saw it in there."

It's like, I don't know what you saw, but yeah.

There are people who do believe there is a monster in Bear Lake.

Kathleen Cottle, Lighthouse Landing Gift Shop: But people come in every day and they will ask, "So Bear Lake Monster, what is this about?"

They all have their different ideas of what it could or should look like, if it's something they should be afraid of, something when you jump in to water ski if you need to be watching for.

Cottle: I like to tell them that it is friendly.

I grew up coming here.

My dad always told us that the one time he thought he saw for real was actually a moose that was swimming in the water.

And he said it gave him a little bit of a start.

But that's as scary as I want to go.

Narrator: Safely browsing in the Lighthouse Landing gift shop, tourists aren't worried about what may lurk in the depths of the 250,000-year-old lake.

Brian Bartlett, Bear Lake Visitor: We're out doing our souvenir shopping and that's why we're getting the Bear Lake Monster T-shirt, and we're on our way home.

We had a great time and nobody got hurt by any monsters.

Narrator: There has always been a fascination with ghost stories.

But sometimes the ghost stories are important to the place.

That's certainly true at the old Albion Normal School.

The large buildings are remnants of a teacher college established in 1893.

The halls of the buildings used to be filled with students.

Some say they still are.

Heather Mortensen, Owner of Albion Property: So there was a story about a college student that roamed the grounds and they would say always at 3 a.m., they would see this girl out there roaming the grounds that had a backpack on.

Narrator: Randy Wells visited the campus in 2007.

As he was touring the buildings, he stopped to take a break near this old stone wishing well.

Randy Wells, Albion Visitor: All of a sudden I could envision people dressed, you know, ladies with long dresses and collars that came all the way up, and men walking around with straw hats.

They were just absolutely walking throughout the grounds there and on the sidewalks, and it was just pretty cool.

And then I looked over by the gymnasium, and there was a maypole with people going around the maypole.

Narrator: Later, on a visit to the campus museum, Randy got spooked.

Wells: "And there on the wall was a picture of exactly what I described earlier, with women in long dresses and the men wearing those hats.

And I'll tell you what, when I saw that picture, I've got to admit, I mean, I kind of freaked out a little bit.

Narrator: The old Albion Normal School campus resides south of Burley.

It closed as a teacher college in 1951.

The buildings were utilized again as The Magic Valley Christian College in 1958 but closed 11 years later in 1969.

The buildings sat vacant for decades.

Caretakers boarded up the buildings but failed to keep everyone out.

Then the Mortensen family bought the buildings in 2007.

Troy Mortensen, Albion Property Owner: We spent a lot of time and money bringing them up to par.

But, yeah, the buildings were in complete shambles.

Narrator: The new owners decided to embrace the decades of ghost stories, building a business around the stories of old to help people make new memories for years to come.

Troy Mortensen: People have been breaking into the campus for 40 years to have their own ghost stories.

So we just kind of built on that, used our creative energy and came up with some ideas so the campus could kind of pay for itself.

Heather Mortensen: We always tease about the fact that we would like to invite the ghosts to come here and help us out in October and come be with our actors that are alive and bring them together.

Narrator: Today, that business, the Haunted Mansions of Albion, is a popular place around Halloween.

Thousands visit the campus every year.

Heather Mortensen: I guess the thing that makes the haunted mansions of Albion unique is that we actually have these authentic old historic buildings that you're going through.

It's not a warehouse that's been fabricated for a haunted house.

It's actually history here.

So you're coming here and you're experiencing this old place, the old trees, everything here that's been here for so long and it was established so long ago.

[STATIC] [PILOTS TALKING OVER RADIO] Narrator: What's that object in the sky?

Is it a plane?

Is it a weather balloon?

Questions left unanswered leave room for speculation.

[PILOT ON RADIO: MY GOSH] Narrator: Idaho UFO enthusiasts would argue the object in the sky could be an anomaly, or it could be aliens.

The Mutual UFO Network of Idaho Director Jim Millard investigates possible UFO sightings in Idaho, and reports seeing two himself.

Jim Millard, MUFON of Idaho: MUFON's position is that some of the unidentified craft that we have seen in the skies over Earth did not come from Earth.

They're here from somewhere else.

We have no idea who they are, what they want or what they're doing.

We are, however, thankful that they're not interfering that we know of.

Narrator: One of the state's first documented UFO sightings was in June of 1947 when Kenneth Arnold, a Boise pilot, saw what he called "flying saucers" over Mount Rainier in Washington.

He coined the now commonly used term.

Millard: He described them as flying saucers and that was █ that's the label that stuck.

Ken was coming back from Seattle to Boise in his aircraft and he saw seven bright discs moving at what he estimated to be about 4,000 miles an hour.

He was able to finish his flight.

He landed here safely, wasn't interfered with or anything else.

And no one has any idea what it was he saw.

Narrator: Arnold's sighting was about a month before the notorious incident in Roswell, New Mexico, in which the U.S. Air Force purportedly recovered a flying object that crashed.

The incident prompted a whirlwind of speculation and theories around Roswell that swirl today.

Arnold went on to write about the experience in 1952 in a book called "The Coming of the Saucers," and he saw national media attention.

In 1962, voters chose Arnold as the Republican nominee for Idaho's lieutenant governor, but he lost in the general election.

He died in 1984, but his story lives on among UFO enthusiasts.

Millard acknowledges that many sightings MUFON investigates turn out to be false.

But others, such as reports of lights or triangular-shaped aircraft known as TR3Bs, can't be simply dismissed.

Millard: We do get a lot of reportings of orbs, orange, blue, white, sometimes green, that float around and just suddenly disappear.

We have no idea what those things are.

That's probably the most common thing that we see in Idaho.

Second would be the TR3Bs.

And then after that, we have had some reports of entities being seen, or we call them EBENs, extraterrestrial biological entities.

We haven't been able to substantiate any of them.

And the majority of those have been determined to be hoaxes.

Millard: The universe has been around for a very long time.

Some of these people that are coming to visit us may be from societies that are millions or billions of years old.

We don't know.

Narrator: An auditorium filled with spirit.

A librarian that never left.

And the smell of lavender.

In downtown Pocatello, Halloween is celebrated with trick-or-treating and a haunted history tour led by the Scientific Paranormal Investigative Research Organization.

One of the founders of the group went to school there.

John Brian, Author, "Ghosts of Pocatello": When I was a student at Pocatello High School, of course, we all heard stories about ghosts.

We ran cross country and track.

I do remember being creeped out in like the locker rooms.

Narrator: Paranormal activity John Brian identified as a student and later as an investigator includes the auditorium and where it's rumored a librarian hung herself from a chandelier.

Another story floating around school is associated with the smell of lavender, perfume that a student wore.

John Brian: We also heard a lot about the suicide pact and the two girls that, one of them hung themself in the locker and the other did not.

Narrator: On a tour stop years ago, something unforgettable happened.

John Brian: They all ran out of the bathroom and out of the building screaming because it was exactly what we had just talked about.

Narrator: While in the school bathroom, the lights went haywire and the smell of lavender was strong.

John Brian: There's no light switches, they're all controlled by a central panel somewhere.

That was the last time that guide ever helped us on the tour.

Narrator: The school was built in 1892.

Originally named the West Side School, it served grades first through twelfth.

The building burned down in 1914.

It was rebuilt and has since been remodeled and expanded.

Bret Yost, Paranormal Investigator: "We need to share this because it's not just about the ghosts or the paranormal side of things.

It is the actual history, as well of the buildings, because that's what gives the buildings the personalities."

Narrator: Pocatello is a railroad town, and railroading is what brought workers to Southeast Idaho.

One of the original Union Pacific kerosene signal lanterns resides in Station Square today.

Lisa Brian, Paranormal Investigator: As time goes on, we distance ourselves from history and we don't remember anymore.

And so, to keep a little piece of that so close to us and to be able to still see it and have a connection to the history, I think is amazing.

Narrator: Those lanterns were used to signal red for stop and green for go.

And some say they still see signals from those long-gone lanterns.

John Brian: As the trains come into the yard, sometimes they see an old-fashioned-style lantern swinging, signaling them like they used to do back at the turn of the century.

They would see the lantern swinging and swinging and then, as they got closer to it, it would disappear.

It is something that has been going on for a very long time in the Union Pacific railroad yards.

[ALARM CLOCK BEEPING] NOAH THOMPSON: We wake up, drink coffee, go to work, go home, watch Netflix, eat dinner, go to bed and start all over.

But I had an experience that wasn't that.

NOAH THOMPSON, BIGFOOT BELIEVER: My name's Noah Thompson and I had a Bigfoot encounter near Banks, Idaho.

DR. JEFF MELDRUM: ISU PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY & ANTHROPOLOGY: What is Sasquatch?

Well from a strictly biological sense, I refer to it as a relic hominoid.

A relic in biology is a population of a species that has persisted in, in a time or place that is much more restricted than, than previously, something █ a holdover, a persistent lineage.

Just a few tens of thousands of years ago, there was probably a half a dozen distinct human-like species or hominin species living across the landscape.

So why would it be so different now?

Why would we assume that we're the last one?

THOMPSON: It was fall 2021, a good friend and I decided to go stargazing.

We ended up here in Banks, because I decided to also show him a hot spring.

And then as we're scoping it out █ it is honestly cold, three o'clock in the morning, in the fall.

So my friend started back down the trail and I stuck around for just a minute and heard something in the distance.

And so I turned around and standing right over there between those two bushes was Bigfoot.

And at that exact moment I also made my way down the mountain.

Booked it myself as fast as I could, passing my friend and heading back to the car.

MELDRUM: So it's interesting, Idaho lays claim to one of the first reported encounters by settlers.

And the hamlet of Chesterfield has a report that dates back to 1902.

During the winter, the young folk were out ice-skating on one of the frozen irrigation ditches, and suddenly from the tree line bursts a, as they described it, a hairy wild man brandishing a stick.

The children were terrified, they piled back into the wagon and hightailed it into town.

Posse of men folk armed came out in search of what was the problem and in the snow discovered 16-inch footprints.

THOMPSON: I think that Bigfoot is a █ the only way that comes to mind is harken, harken back to a simpler time where wild still exists.

And I think that, at least for me maybe, that that's where the love of Bigfoot comes from, is our soul wanting something wild still.

[DISCUSSING SPECIMENS] MELDRUM: Obviously the conclusive evidence for the existence of a new species would be a specimen that provides physical evidence of the existence of such a creature.

Short of that, though, we have lots of very compelling and suggestive evidence of the existence.

THOMPSON: It was ginormous, broad shoulders, just very broad.

But its head was not proportioned to the size of its body or its shoulders or whatnot, just a big animal.

Eight-foot tall, small head, broad shoulders, chocolate-milk fur.

Chocolate milk from the store, like pour it in a glass, that's the color of fur.

That's the only way I can describe it.

I'm not very eloquent, but that's, that's the way it looked to me.

MELDRUM: I get the biggest thrill, the biggest charge out of pursuing questions that are still mysterious.

I mean, if you already know what the answer is, then it becomes work.

Otherwise it's play.

I mean, it's what I do for, for, out of a passion.

And so, until the question is resolved, I don't think I'll, I'll ever lose interest.

THOMPSON: It's a unique experience and opportunity that I think very few people in the grand scheme of things have ever experienced.

And so, it's something that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

MELDRUM: I'm at a point where I feel this is a very legitimate question of biology.

I guess I'm always, in some ways, a sucker for the controversial or a champion of the underdog.

I hate to see things misrepresented or misstated.

THOMPSON: I would just say that seeing is believing and I believe what I saw and that, um, why not?

Why not?

[NIGHT SOUNDS] [GROWLING] Announcer: Idaho Experience is made possible with funding from the James and Barbara Cimino Foundation, devoted to preserving the spirit of Idaho.

From Anne Voillequé and Louise Nelson.

From Judy and Steve Meyer.

With additional support from the J.A.

and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation, the Friends of Idaho Public Television, the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporationfor Public Broadcasting.