Library of Cryptozoology

I was much interested in the letter in your issue for March 4th from my friend Admiral Anstruther with regard to the animal, whether mammal, reptile, or fish, which he saw leap out of the sea to the height of forty or fifty feet. These amimals are well known to the inhabitants of the wilder parts of the coast of Connemara, Mayo and Donegal, and are known as Gorramoolochs. The inhabitants do not, however, often speak of them to visitors, whom they know to be incredulous. As the creatures leap principally by night they are not often seen. They can leap to a much greater height than that seen by your correspondent, and woe to the belated gannet upon which they once set their eye, even though it be flying at a height of 100 feet above the surface of the sea. They follow it like a sleuth hound, and when they get within striking distance launch themselves through the air and, gliding by the aid of their large wing-like fins and guided by the swinging of their tail, they strike it and bring i...

In the spring of 1910, when I was in command of the 'Caesar,' battleship, steaming towards the Clyde and between the coast of Ireland and the Isle of Man, I was on the bridge, in broad daylight, when a creature leapt out of the water close to the ship and shot straight up into the air about forty or fifty feet, and came down spread-eagle fashion. It had the appearance of a chameleon, though shorter in proportion, and was about the size of the skinned chow-dogs one sees hanging outside the butchers' shops of Canton. I called the navigating officer from the standard compass, and as he got to my side the creature leapt again, and we both had a good look at it. I have never been able to get any information about such a thing from books or from people, and had almost given up the quest when I saw the banner of the Ancient Town of Rye. The banner is copied from the seal of the town. The seal is very old and represents the arms of Rye (three figures, half lion, half line o' b...

Your item on Dr. Roy P. Mackal and the Loch Ness Monster (This Month, July '67) was especially distressing to me. It is not that the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau Ltd. should not keep on investigating, but this group is after minnows compared to the huge Leviathan in waters approximately two hundred miles west of the Azores Islands, in the regular shipping lanes. The Loch Ness Monster, according to other articles I have read is not larger than fifty feet, while the mammoth creature of which I am speaking may be over three hundred feet, possibly five hundred feet. Approximately 1300 hours, 25 June, 1966 while on board a ship en route to New York I saw this tremendous Leviathan partially surfaced in a calm sea. There was not a whitecap to be seen, when all of a sudden there was a breakwater about a mile distant, as the prow of a ship might make. My first glimpse of the greyish-blue sea serpent came as the long round body emerged from the depths and, like a roller coaster, ...

On the twentieth dive in the Bathysphere, at a depth of 2100 feet, we saw two large, elongate, barracuda-shaped fish, which twice passed within eight feet of the windows, once partly through the beam of our electric light. These were at least six feet in length. No direct lights were visible on the head, yet the rather large eyes and the faint outline were distinct. There was a single row of strong, pale blue lights along the side, large and not far from twenty in number. The mouth, with strongly undershot jaw, and numerous fangs illumined either by mucous or indirect internal lights along the brachiostegals. The fish reminded me in general of barracudas, with deeper jaws open all the time. Posterially placed vertical fins were seen when they passed through the electric beam. There were two ventral tentacles, each tipped with a pair of separate, luminous bodies, the superior reddish, the lower one blue. These twitched and jerked along beneath the fish, one undoubtedly arising from a ...

Just as NBC was signing off, Dr. Beebe gave an exclamation. A deep sea dragon at least six feet long crossed before the window and a moment later returned with its mate. Until that time scientists had doubted the presence of such large fish in the middepths. This was the only big dragon on record, and I had missed seeing it!

The monster taken at Fortune Bay was still unidentified two days after it was killed in a 48-hour battle against fishermen's guns and harpoons, and was lying lashed to Capt. Earl Noble's motor vessel Golda awaiting an offer of purchase. If no museum or institution buys the huge carcass, its nine-inch deep coat of fat will be fried into oil. The exact length of the creature is 34 feet. It is finless, but has several pairs of four-foot long flippers. Its tail is nine feet in extreme width; while the mouth, three feet, eight inches across, extends nine feet from the tip of the snouth. The immense fish differs greatly from any whales frequenting Newfoundland waters, and does not fit descriptions of any known fish.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 21-1-67. A mysterious animal weighing 700 to 800 kilograms was hunted in the Atlantic Ocean in the proximity of the mouth of the Salado River. Its capture scattered dread and discomfort, although the oldest fishermen failed to recognize its classification and origin. The subofficial, Sotelo, of the prefecture (Maritime Police) said that a large animal swam in front of his post. At first he thought that it was a sea-cow in the distance, but the approach in a launch proved that it was an unknown animal, which was escaping. After two shots, Sotelo managed to kill the monster, which was roped and drawn from the water by the townsmen. The beast possessed dorsal fins in the form of hands, ending in four clawed digits, and a spindly body. The head was similar to that of a cow, although provided with large canine teeth similar to those of a carnivore. A daily newspaper has published today a photograph of the head of the monster by the side of its captor, Sotelo.

Don't confuse a salp with a sea serpent, a marine authority advises. The research ship Challenger, which first reported sighting a 40-foot sea monster of an as yet unclassified species in the Atlantic about 15 miles off of Sandy Hook, returned to port after another cruise through the area Thursday, The researchers didn't see the sea serpent, but they saw salp, says John Clark, assistant director of the Sandy Hook Marine Laboratory. The salp is a cousin to the jellyfish and usually is about as big as a man's fist. But when salps reproduce, they form long ribbon-like segments [chains]. This long string is wiggly and transparent and can well give the illusion of being sea serpent, according to Clark, but the creature is harmless. Clark said he thinks an epidemic of sea monster repotrs will be loosed by the Challenger's encounter with the unknown 40-foot creature. Most likely it will be salps that the people will see, he said. Be it salp or honest-to-goodness sea serpen...

A "thing" described as a 40-foot-long hunk of jelly is reported cavorting in the Atlantic. It undulated near the surface in a manner resembling the storied sea serpents, says Dr. Lionel A. Walford, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife research center here. "But please be careful not to call it a sea serpent," savs Walford, who saw the creature. "It is an invertebrate," he said here. "It looked like so much jelly. I could see no bones, and no eyes, nose or mouth. But, there it was, undulating along looking as if it were almost made of fluid glass." The "thing" was sighted off Sandy Hook. "It was at least 40 feet in length, and about 5 inches thick and perhaps 7 to 8 inches deep, looking something like an enormously long flattened eel," said Walfofd. The "thing" was sighted from a research vessel as scientists were lowering two frogmen in a sharkproof' iron "bird cage" to make oceanographic studies.

It may have been a brother of the Stronsay monster that Alec Groundwater saw one summer day in the 1830s, rising out of Scapa Flow. I'll tell you the story exactly as Alec's daughter told it to me. He was a boy at the time, she said, and was sitting on one of the high banks at the 'Binks o' Birnorvie' in Orphir. It was an afternoon of calm sunshine; the water below him was lippering gently on the rocks; when suddenly it seemed to come to boil a stone's throw from where he was sitting, and the strangest sea creature he had ever seen raised its head out of the sea and glared at him. After regarding him thus for a few seconds, it reared itself up and tried to catch hold of his bare dangling feet. It was fortunate for Alec that he was out of reach, for he was ronted to the spot by fear and surprise.<br>The creature had a broad head, and a wide mouth with large teeth or tusks, and cold baleful eyes. There was a long mane down the back of its neck that reminded ...

The kraken or horven, which appears like a floating island, sending forth tentacula as high as the masts of a ship, and the great sea-snake with his formidable mane, are monsters that have been occasionally recognised [in the Shetlands], and their occurrence is much connected with the demonology of the Shetland Seas ... I have heard, in Shetland, of a sea-serpent being seen off the Isle of Stennes, Vailey Island, and Dunrossness.