Case file · Folklore / legend
Lituya Bay and Kah Lituya
Tlingit tradition tells of a being in Lituya Bay, Alaska, who drowns those who enter by raising great waves; the French explorer La Pérouse lost 21 men there on 13 July 1786.
1786 CE · 58.64, -137.55 · status: legend
The account
The bay has had giant waves in recorded history, most famously the 1958 megatsunami, when a landslide sent water 524 metres up the opposite slope. The tradition is often seen as a memory of earlier waves.