Lake Burslem Monster: Case Histories

Down the years, there have been many hundreds of sightings of the Lake Burslem Monster. Here is a selection of some of the most significant.

06 August 1968

During Stoke's "Summer Of Love", a year later than everyone else's, Dr Doomsday (real name: Mick Beanstalk) and his “family” [cult] from Kent watched what they described as the head of a large animal move through the lake in the early evening. The family, who worship aliens and believe in free love, were sunbathing on top of their Love Bus. They described the head as larger than that of an alien. Regular visitors to the area, the family were convinced it was not a boat wake or wave movement that they had seen.

25 March 1973

American Buck Rockhauser was shooting fish from his boat on the lake one afternoon when he says that Bursie lifted her tail out of the water and knocked him overboard. “Instead of panicking, I swam to shore then started shooting at Bursie instead of the fish. I think I got it at least once,” he explained.

Artist's impression of Bursie

30 July 1977

Sharon Bender, a retired wife from Hanley, was fly-tipping some old fish into Lake Burslem when she got a big surprise: Bursie popped her head out of the water to see what she was doing! Sharon immediately turned and ran back to her car, before driving to a local newspaper to sell her story.

06 May 1986

Paul “Coops” Cooper from Norton was taking a series of pictures of his penis near to the Spitfire Caverns, on the eastern side of the lake. When he got home and developed the pictures, he was surprised to see Bursie’s head and neck coming out of the water behind him!

10 January 1993

Local gymnastics enthusiast Dave Knight saw a six foot long creature leave the lake, look around, then perform a dance similar to the one Genesis did in their 'I Can’t Dance' music video, before re-entering the lake. This happened for about 2-3 minutes close to Cheg's Castle early in the morning. Knight, who recently beat up a tramp, readily admits he was drunk at the time of the sighting, but hopes people will still believe his story anyway.

09 June 1997

A retired Mariner (Captain Jeff Buckles) was in charge of a booze cruise just south of Phil Taylor Bay when they were overtaken by an unknown object which was between them and the west shore. Unlike anything any of the sober people on the boat had seen before, the sighting lasted for just over a minute with whatever it was only disappearing as they moved the boat towards it. Captain Buckles, who once dated TV personality Liza Tarbuck, said that there was no rational explanation for what they had seen. Apart from the existence of Bursie that is!

22 November 2001

For the first time since the assassination of JFK in 1963, Bursie was spotted out of the water on the shores of Lake Burslem by Spanish tourist Pedro Navaz. The Spaniard, who has since been imprisoned in Italy for conspiracy to linger with intent, claimed the unique sighting took place in the early evening on the beach between Robbie Williams Point and Phil Taylor Bay. Bursie, described as being between 10-15 metres in length with a long neck, scurried off into the water as Navaz approached with a big sword.

17 July 2005

Russ Abbott, yesterday

Famous 1980s comedian Russ Abbott took pictures of a wake moving against the current from his balcony at the Boslem Hotel during the mid-afternoon. It was around midday when the former funny man, touring the Midlands with Geoffrey Durham (aka: The Great Soprendo) in a production of ‘Porgy and Bess’, spotted what he first thought to be a dead black midget’s body floating on the surface of the lake. It appeared to be about three feet long and one foot tall at its highest point. The object then moved against the wave formation in the area creating a wake as it did so. Abbott, famous for his TV Madhouse, saw some kind of water disturbance about three feet behind the black coloured object, which appeared to rise slightly out of the water before submerging. An experienced whale hunter, Abbott said that he had never before seen anything like it. Whether Russ threw a party after his encounter, a party with a happy atmosphere, and attended by Les Dennis and Bella Emberg, is unknown.

15 September 2006
Bill Wilkes, owner of the Lake Burslem Caravan Park, took five pictures of what he described as a 4 feet high head and neck while he was dogging at a car park by the Lake. He said he saw a long neck come out of the water and had time to return to his caravan, get his camera, and return to take the pictures. Previously a non-believer, he said that the creature could only have been Bursie and that he would now devote himself to proving Bursie’s existence to the detriment of everything else in his life, especially his marriage to wife Sue, aged 50.

25 July 2008

Spotted on a Lake Burslem webcam, regular Bursie watcher Chip Steele spotted something come out of the water and disappear a few minutes later. Steele, an American Gladiator (stage name: Thrush), doesn’t believe that Bursie is evil. “I can’t imagine him using his power for bad,” he says.