Library of Cryptozoology

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.

The account given in the Union yesterday of a mammoth sea monster seen by Capt. Charlesworth, of the yacht Cygnet, and the venerable Dr. Squills of this city, last Tuesday in a cove on the Peninsula, created considerable commotion, especially among the members of the Academy of Sciences. The Academy held a special meeting, and the UNION’s account was read by the Secretary. Several members spoke of the serpent-fish, and all confessed themselves unable to classify it with any of the known families of the great deep. When they adjourned they all went sailing over to the Peninsula, in hope to obtain a glimpse of the wonderful visitor to our harbor. Every sailing and row boat on the bay was out with parties all day long, the occupants being anxious to obtain a glance at the serpent-fish, but keeping a respectful distance from the cove where he was seen. Charlie Kauffman, of this city, and Pete Thompson, of Los Angeles, who happens to be here visiting, went prospecting for sights on the Bay ...

A party consisting of Messrs. E.A. Veazie, J.M. Spencer and Dr. Squills went out sailing on the yacht Cygnet (formerly Pilot boat No. 2), Captain George Charlesworth yesterday morning and returned about one o'clock P.M. From them our reporter has obtained the following particulars of a remarkable sea monster which was seen by Capt. Charlesworth in a cove on the Peninsula almost opposite this city. After sailing up to the end of the Peninsula and back as far as this cove, the yacht was brought to an anchor and the parting, taking their three shot guns, when off to the sore in the skiff. It was agreed upon that Messrs. Veazie and Spencer should remain concealed at that point until Capt. Charlesworth and Dr. Spills should go up and around the cove in search of curlews. These birds, which are considered very choice game, have been shot in considerable quantities at this place, and by keeping them flying back and forth across the cove the party expected to bag several messes. At the upp...

The good people of Nahant and other eastern localities can no longer boast of the sole proprietorship of a great "sea serpent." We have one on the California coast, and he was lately seen in St. Simeon Bay, San Luis Obispo county, about two miles from the shore. At that distance he appeared to be about 80 feet in length. He carried his head high out of water, the sea being perfectly smooth, travelled swiftly, and in half an hour after first being seen, disappeared at sea. He was seen by at least a half dozen gentlemen and ladies, all of whom had a good view of the monster.

We have so often heard of a sea serpent being in existence in the Atlantic Ocean, we had hoped he would pay a visit to the Pacific Ocean, so that we might make an item, and not place reliability in the papers of the East as to his existence, until he was seen on this side. Such seems to have been the case; for some passengers on board the British barque Bolina, from Valparaiso, arrived yesterday [at San Francisco], report that they actually saw a sea serpent on the 3d of May, in lat. 25 N., lon. 130, near Douglass Reef [Okinotorishima]. He was about half a mile from the vessel, and measured about one hundred and seventy feet in length.

It is stated that the master of a schooner recently arrived reports having seen a sea monster a few degrees to the eastward of the Sandwich Islands [Hawaiian Islands]. It is represented to have been not less than eighty feet long, with a head like that of a common water snake, and provided with huge fins, with which it proceeded through the water with incredible speed. The creature passed across the bows of the vessel, and was last seen about a mile to windward. It appeared above the water several times in the course of ten minutes.

The 16th I went out in a canoe which Captain Kendrick purchased of the natives and made me a present of shooting I left the ship [Columbia] early with an intention of seeing the village of Okerminna [in Clayoquot Sound] it was noon before I arrived at Inistuck ... before which is a clever snug cove in which there were many geese, ducks and teal sporting here I landed in order to get a shot at them one of the people that was with me who also landed in creeping along the edge of the bush saw an animal which I conceiv'd to be an alligator the man was so agitated as not to be able to give any description of what he had seen than that it was a huge animal very long with a large mouth and teeth the neck about as thick as his thigh and so tapered of to the tail with a black back and light yellow belly I immediately repaired to the place where this animal had been seen but could not get a sight of him from this circumstance I was induced to think it was only a burnt log (of which there are...

At 0645 GMT a dark-brown whale with a prominent dorsal fin ... was seen from for'ard, swimming just below the surface of the sea [Indian Ocean], and about 100 m ahead of the ship [SS Act 1 ]. When only 40 m away, it took evasive action by diving, its flukes remaining below the surface throughout. No blow was observed. Although no positive identification was possible, the prominent dorsal fin and dark-brown colouring suggest the sighting was of the Alula Whale.

The bright illuminating lights were turned on as he [Joe Thompson] maneuvred the craft [the Deepstar 4000 ] along the San Diego Trough at a depth of 4000 feet [in June 1966]. Suddenly, as Thompson looked out the pilot's viewport, a giant fish swam into view under the port. He looked directly into one of its eyes, which later he described as the size of a dinner plate. As the fish quickly moved on, Thompson could see the silt swirling from the bottom of the ocean. Finally as the enormous fish passed, he saw its serrated tail and he judged it to be nearly 40 feet in length: Joe Thompson was also certain that the fish had possessed scales

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.

We [the ship Emma] had been a week out from Santo Domingo, and were out about twenty miles northeast from Cedros Island, when early one morning we saw a commotion in the sea about a mile off. It was a very quiet morning, and we crept up very close. We saw a strange sight. A whale about 30 feet long had been found or killed by the monster that was feeding upon it. At intervals the serpent would roar up out of the sea so that we could coolly survey his entire form. His body was round and about three times as long as the whale, or 100 feet long. Its head was as near like a turtle as anything else, with the mouth set well back under the jaw. We did not see the eyes, so I can not say if they are the traditional flaming eyeballs or not. On each side of the body were five or six legs, each webbed and horned like the wings of a dragon. While feeding on the whale it made a peculiar, horrible wheezing or hissing sound, but when it saw us it stopped and drew slowly away, looking back over its sho...

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 ...

Now in the course of examining and investigating these subjects and what bears upon them, to the utmost limit, with all the zeal that I could command, I have ascertained that the ''scolopendra'' is a sea-monster, and of sea-monsters it is the biggest, and if cast up on the shore no one would have the courage to look at it. And those who are expert in marine matters say that they have seen them floating and that they extend the whole of their head above the sea, exposing hairs of immense length protruding from their nostrils, and that the tail is flat and resembles that of a crayfish. And at times the rest of their body is to be seen floating on the surface, and its bulk is comparable to a full-sized trireme. And they swim with numerous feet in line on either side as though they were rowing themselves (though the expression is somewhat harsh) with tholepins hung alongside.

Chenla [Cambodia] produces a fish named fu-hu , which resembles the mud-eel, but with a bill shaped like the parrot's, and eight legs.

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.