The 13-person truth commission set up by the district council of Fljótsdalshérað municipality in East Iceland in August 2012 to evaluate whether the infamous lake monster Lagarfljótsormurinn (Lagarfljót worm) is the phenomenon filmed by Hjörtur Kjerúlf, farmer at Hrafnkelsstaðir, has requested more time to complete the task, visir.is reports.
The committee says that more time is needed in order to evaluate a number of other videos claiming to show the lake monster but emphasizes that it does not believe that costs will get out of hand.
Hjörtur has made claim to the ISK 500,000 (USD 4,400, EUR 3,200) prize in a competition the local municipality launched 15 years ago on photos of Lagarfljótsormurinn. The prize was never paid out because none of the photos entered were thought to show the monster. However, the district council at the time promised that if the monster would ever be caught on camera, the photographer would be entitled to the prize.
Hjörtur’s video received huge interest both in Iceland and abroad and many other people have said that they too have seen the lake monster. Close to five million people have watched Hjörtur’s video on YouTube.
