The Icelander who took the now-famous video of what could be the mythical Lagarfljóts Worm denies he created the footage or altered it in any way.
As reported earlier this week, a man in northeast Iceland recorded an object in Jökulsá river which appears to move in a snake-like motion across the current. The river empties into the lake Lagarfljót where, according to legends going back to the 14th century, a large serpentine beast known as The Worn resides. While there have been numerous first-hand sightings of the creature over the centuries, this is the clearest footage of anything resembling evidence of the beast.
Since the story went up, it has attracted the attention of media from around the world. The YouTube video of the footage, seen below, has managed to gather over 2.6 million views since Monday. However, many of the comments express a great deal of scepticism, with some accusing the man who shot the footage of creating an elaborate hoax.
The man who shot the footage, farmer Hjörtur Kjerúlf, denies this outright, RÚV reports.
According to Hjörtur, he was making his morning coffee on the day of the incident, when he noticed something moving across the river. Taking a closer look, he found it strange that this thing appeared to have the head of a crocodile and was swimming against the current, so he decided to film it.
Hjörtur is 67 years old, and says he knows nothing about computers. A male relative helped him extract the video and subsequently upload it. He contends that the footage is completely genuine, and that he did nothing to create the scene nor alter the footage after it was shot.
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