While the argument about whether Florida is part of the South or not, is up for debate, but it is certainly the most infamous for wild news stories. As I was looking for new Cryptids to share, I wondered what the orange state had to offer for supernatural beings. While looking, one that regularly popped up was the Trident Tailed Monster.

Around West Palm Beach is a space of water named Lake Worth Lagoon and it is said to contain the creature. There are many disbelievers who say it is a Manatee with an injury, there are others who disagree and say it’s something more.

For those who want to see what it looks like, there is actually a YouTube channel by the name of AllThings Creepy who shared a decent quality video (surprising since most videos of cryptids are typically low quality, grainy, or difficult to see the contents of the video itself) and while the beast does seem similar to a Manatee, it is most definitely not. Nor is it a seal, which I had considered while looking at the snout of it.

Photo of caution sign at Lake Worth Lagoon. (Contributed/palmbeachpost.com)


Airing as the focus of an episode of Monster Quest (a Show on the History Channel) in 2009, the monster quickly gained popularity. It didn’t seem to have kept it, as the only mention of it online in the last year has been found on R/cryptozoology on Reddit. Other than online, mention of it was found primarily in two books; “Chronicles of the Strange and Uncanny” by Greg Jenkins in 2014 and “Monsters, Beasts, and Demons in America” by Kristi Lew in 2011.

While I didn’t find any first-person sightings, the clearest description of the cryptid comes from Reddit user UNNOMEMNILLIONAIRE (again under the Cryptozoology subreddit) who said,

“The trident tail lake monster is said to be a serpentine creature with smooth dark skin with a large body thicker than a telephone pole and being up to 50 ft in length. The monster has said to move at incredible speeds coiling its body in vertical undulations and propelling itself with a powerful tail.”

Looking at the video that spreads around I can understand both the disbelief that it is not a manatee, but on the other hand, it doesn’t quite look right for such a simple answer.

If I were to put into my own words what it looks like, it would be akin to a seal-sized manatee with a three-pronged tail fin. But who’s to say what this mysterious creature is and is not. Like many things in the ocean, it remains an enigma.

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