Last week Oswald Paddock was doing some night fishing out at Nodaway Lake when he saw the Loch Ness monster swimming near the north shore. At least, that’s what he told the lunch crowd over at McGonigle’s General Store & Diner the next day while he was eating his BLT. Most of the diners scoffed at his big fish story, of course, but Thelma Dinwiddie (of all people) overheard Oswald’s claim and immediately relayed the story to Bertha Stettner, the town gossi— um, I mean, the town news reporter. By the time the story winded its way through Gazingstock’s information highway, the sighting of the Loch Ness monster had everyone in town speculating that a celebrity like Nessie was most likely vacationing in northwest Missouri to get away from the Scottish paparazzi.

It wasn’t long before Claretta Gilpin, a clerk over at the courthouse, heard the story and called the sheriff’s office to report the Nessie sighting. Deputy Kenny Tatterson, the sheriff’s brother-in-law, was dispatched to the lake to investigate Oswald’s story, but he couldn’t verify a thing. What Kenny did spy, however, was a few empty bottles of Oswald’s favorite beverage floating near the shoreline where Oswald had reportedly seen the monster. No, it wasn’t alcohol; it was just Grape Nehi, but everybody knew that too much carbonated sugar made Oswald nuttier than squirrel’s breath. As far as Kenny was concerned, the mystery was solved.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. During the next 24 hours, sightings of a gigantic lake creature were reported by other folks— folks who (unlike Oswald Paddock) wore shoes, spoke in complete sentences, and didn’t wear purple mustaches. Their stories were harder to dismiss, and Sheriff Tom Lazenby, driven by devoted public service (and his upcoming re-election campaign), decided to personally investigate the mystery and solve it just in time for the evening edition of The Nodaway County Tattler and Mule Trader.

Using his own bass boat and only charging a nominal rental fee to the county, Sheriff Lazenby and two deputies trolled the waters of Nodaway Lake for several hours, but found no evidence of the slippery prehistoric beast that witnesses had described. Onlookers on the shore were confused as to why the three law enforcement officers were using fishing rods during their lake investigation, but Sheriff Lazenby assured the crowd that it was all part of a sophisticated water search strategy that was first developed by undercover FBI agent, Harold Ensley. The six catfish that the sheriff had detained in his boat were being taken in for questioning.

Back at headquarters (after an impromptu fish fry), Sheriff Lazenby and his men concocted a plan to capture the aquatic beast in the dead of night, when perhaps the creature would least expect to be discovered. Armed with a Famous Monsters magazine for reference purposes, a can of mosquito spray, and a roll of toilet paper, the sheriff and his men hunkered down in the woods that bordered the north shore of Nodaway Lake and waited in the dark for the Loch Ness monster to make an appearance.

Sure enough, a little after midnight, there was a glowing, cigar-shaped object that appeared just below the surface of the lake and slowly glided parallel to the shore. Sheriff Lazenby instructed Kenny and the other deputy, Garrett Fixmuller, to go take a closer look while he stayed behind to guard the toilet paper. Reluctantly, the deputies complied and headed towards the UFO (unidentified floating object) with guns drawn and hearts pounding.

Suddenly, the glowing lake monster surfaced with a loud splash in front of them. Then the top of the creature’s light-green skin opened up and a pale head with bulging eyes emerged from the gaping hole. “Hey, fellas!” the hideous beast-head exclaimed. “What are y’all doing here?”

What transpired next is just a blur for the particpants involved. Garrett remembers Kenny screaming like a girl as Garrett ran back into the woods, but Kenny denies this. All Kenny remembers is firing off three rounds at the monster and seeing its ugly head retracting into its body as the bullets ricocheted off the creature’s hind quarters in a flash of sparks.

About this time, Sheriff Lazenby rushed out of the woods and grabbed Kenny’s gun. “Don’t kill the varmint, Kenny!” the sheriff ordered as he wrestled his deputy to the ground. “We can capture it alive and sell it for millions to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

But Sheriff Lazenby’s dream of freak show riches was soon shattered. “Don’t shoot!” a voice frantically shouted from inside the lake monster’s body. “It’s me! Merle! Merle Coffey! Hold your fire!”

Stunned, Sheriff Lazenby aimed his flashlight at the water creature as it bobbed upon the lazy waves of the lake. It wasn’t a prehistoric fish after all. It appeared to be an old, seven-foot long propane tank covered in light green paint and sporting a short tower welded on top. Slowly, a figure emerged through a hatch door and raised his arms in surrender. It was Merle Coffey, all right, wearing a pair of motorcycle goggles, holding a Coleman electric lantern, and looking sheet-white and shaken. “What in tarnation are you fellas doing? Tryin’ to ventilate me?!” he asked out of breath, but none the less ticked off.

The three officers stood on the shore with their mouths opened wide enough to catch dragonflies. “Well, butter my toast, Sheriff,” Kenny exclaimed. “It’s a hoax!”

Except it wasn’t a hoax at all.

A few weeks ago, Merle Coffey, local inventor and League fellow, had been challenged by his agnostic neighbor, Jim Bob Melton, to explain how the prophet Jonah could have possibly survived three days in the belly of a fish. Realizing, of course, that a skeptic like Jim Bob wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple answer pertaining to God’s miraculous power over His creation, Merle felt his only alternative was to build a mechanical fish that would swallow up a man for three day, spit him out alive, and hopefully, shut up Jim Bob’s mouth for good.

Over the next few weeks, much to the consternation of his wife, Merle used his family’s propane tank and other scrap metal to fashion a manmade submersible “fish” with ballast tanks, valves, tilting fins, hand-cranked screw propeller, and a conning tower with a plate glass window to see where he was going. It was a marvel of rural-based technology and biblical apologetics.

When it was done, Merle kissed his wife adieu, hauled his invention to the lake with his little Ford tractor, and launched it into the “Sea of Nodaway” to prove the reality of God’s word.  For over 48 hours, Merle cruised through the depths of the lake, surfacing periodically to replenish his oxygen supply, but nonetheless existing in the belly of his metal fish with only a few jugs of water and a tin of Vienna sausages. His only contact with civilization was with the use of a CB radio to keep his wife informed of his progress. It was not exactly a literal recreation of Jonah’s adventure, mind you, but it was certainly an achievement of nautical prowess that confirmed the possibility of underwater fish travel. And with only one day to go, it seemed Merle was on the verge of a successful mission.

That is, until Merle ran into a problem that the prophet Jonah never had to deal with: Kenny “Shoot First, Ask Questions Later” Tatterson. Certainly, no Ninevite was ever as dangerous as a frightened man with a gun and a nervous trigger finger.

Sheriff Lazenby immediately took Merle and his submersible contraption into custody and fined him $25 for operating a lake monster without a license. Of course, Merle wasn’t happy about it, but he reluctantly showed the officers where he stashed his tractor and lowboy in the woods so the men could load the submarine up and take it back into town. Once in Gazingstock, Sheriff Lazenby parked the submarine in front of the courthouse and invited Merle to make himself comfortable inside a jail cell until his wife could pay his fine and take him home.

Surprisingly, all was not lost for Merle. Though he fell short of completing his biblical experiment, Merle was able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with his guard, Deputy Fixmuller, while he waited in his jail cell during the night. By God’s grace, the deputy seemed to eagerly receive the Good News and even agreed to go to church with Merle the following Sunday. Merle couldn’t help but think that, in God’s providence, he was meant to fail in his nautical pursuit for the purpose of bringing Garret Fixmuller to a knowledge of the Lord and teaching Merle that only the Holy Spirit and the Lord’s timing can bring a man to the Truth, and not the inventions of man.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Lazenby was outside the jailhouse, proudly posing for pictures next to the biggest fish that anyone in Nodaway County had ever caught. He had rousted a reporter for the Tattler out of bed at 3 AM to give him the scoop on how he had solved the Nodaway Lake mystery with his brillant crime fighting skills, catlike reflexes, and patriotic fervor. The obliging, but sleep-deprived reporter jotted down the details of the case as best he could, took a few more pictures of the hero with his catch, then headed to his typewriter to polish up the story for the morning edition. Later that day the headline would read: “Lake Mystery Solved: Coffey Keeps Sheriff Up All Night.”

As for Merle’s wife, she was surprisingly calm about having to come down to the jail to pick up her husband and use her cookie jar money to pay the $25 fine to get him out. Doris Coffey knew Merle was a godly man and she loved him dearly, but mostly she was just glad he hadn’t tried to prove the validity of Noah’s Ark.

Of course, there’s a lesson in this fish story for all of us: sometimes we all need to be reminded to look for God’s blessings in the midst of our supposed difficulties.