Library of Cryptozoology

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.

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.

In their dual capacity as foresters and wildlife officers, the rangers of the 1920s and 1930s kept meticulous records that make riveting reading ... An early supervisor wrote: On several occasions this summer, Ranger Paul Gilbert has discussed with me the matter of there having been found in Lily Lake, in the southern end of Blanca district, from two to four or five "Duck-bills." I have not been anxious to report this earlier, thinking that some mistake might have been made in the identity of these mammals. However, on my last trip to his station, and in a a trip over his district, I found that the existence of the mammals is known to several men and that several men are making an attempt to trap them. As I understand it, these are egg-laying, burrowing, aquatic mammals and are supposed to exist largely, and possibly only, in Australia. I have read somewhere that North America has none of these mammals, and if this be the case, I think the matter should be immediately invest...

A curious animal was believed to roam over the marshes [near Marblehead], making a roaring sound. I never knew one who claimed to have seen it, but a very clear idea of its appearance prevailed; a person who looked unkempt or fierce was compared to "a rumbling marsh lion," or one who talked boisterously was said to roar like "a rumbling marsh lion." The old people were sure that it was a real live thing wandering around, and not altogether canny. Could a sea-lion have strayed up some of the salt creeks in days long ago, and so given rise to the legend?

When asked to describe Kátcheetohúskw, the [Naskapi] informants said he was very large, had a big head, large ears and teeth, and a long nose with which he hit people. His tracks in the snow were described in their stories as large and round. One Indian who had seen pictures of the modern elephant said he thought that Kátcheetohúskw was the elephant ... the older Indians question were unanimous in declaring that such had always been the description of the Kátcheetohúskw so far as they had any knowledge. ... Dr. Frank G. Speck has kindly sent me an interesting tale which he recently secured from the Penobscot Indians of Maine. The myth concerns the adventures of Snowy Owl, a Penobscot culture hero ... He saw what seemed to be hills without vegetation moving slowly about. Upon closer scrutiny he saw that these masses were really the backs of great animals with long teeth, animals so huge that when they lay down they could not get up. They drank for half a day at a time. Snowy Owl went ...

There was a tradition among the Indians [northwest of the Ohio] of the existence of the mastodon; they were often seen; they fed on the boughs of a species of lime tree, and they did not lie down, but leaned against a tree to sleep.

A long time ago [according to the Chitimacha] a being with a long nose came out of the ocean and began to kill people. It would root up trees with its nose to get at persons who sought refuge in the branches, and people lived on scaffolds to get away from it. It made its home in a piece of woods near Charenton, and when guns were introduced the people went into this wood to kill the monster, but could not find it. When the elephant was seen it was thought to be the same creature, and was consequently called Neka-ci ckami, 'Long-nosed spirit'.

Many years before the discovery of the elephant in the bayou called Carancro an Atakapas savage had informed a man who is at present in my service in the capacity of cow-herd that the ancestors of his nation transmitted to their descendants that a beast of enormous size had perished either in this bayou or in one of the two water courses a short distance from it without their being able to indicate the true place, the antiquity of the event having without doubt made them forget it. The fact has realized this tradition.

The Tartars maintain that the mammoth still exists in their country at the mouths of rivers ... It is also claimed that hunters have pursued them [mammoths] west of the Mississippi.

Mr. Editor, the following short notice relative to what seems to me to be a subject of no slight interest may probably be deemed worthy of insertion either among your customary memoranda of natural history, or in some vacant corner of your instructive miscellany. You know that specimens of what has been denominated the wool-bearing animal have lately been transmitted from the rocky mountains of North America, to the professor of natural history in this city. This animal had not been described in any of the great works on natural history; and though it is a remarkable quadruped, not only from its haunts, which are among the high precipices of stupendous mountains, but from the great beauty and value of its fleece, it has till within few years been altogether unknown to any of the numerous scientific individuals who have been so actively engaged in investigating the wonders of every quarter of the globe. The fact is, however, that this animal, which we are informed is intermediate betwee...

There is also a rather amusing tradition among these [Algonkian] barbarians of a great moose, next to which the others are like ants. They say it has legs so high that eight feet of snow do not hinder it. Its skin is proof against all sorts of weapons, and it has a sort of arm coming from its shoulder that it uses as we do ours. It never fails to have a large number of moose following it that make up its court and that render it all of the services it requires of them.

Tis also advised from Louisiana, that the Natives advancing into some uninhabited Countries found some Elephants that had perish'd in a marshy place; which had given rise to a question whether this country does not border upon Asia the rather because the Natives say, they never saw nor heard that there were any Animal of that kind in that Country.

They saw a live elephant. At Valentine, Nebr. where them springs are is where they saw this Pa sno ta, a live elephant standing by a fall, a big spring.

"From these villages, they would go on Wah-ni-sa (Buffalo Hunt) up the Missouri River, way in the Rocky Mountains. They say where they step over the Nu-sho-day (Missouri River) they would follow the Rocky Mountains to Pikes Peak and they would come back to Nebraska and they would follow on the rivers back to Wah-ta where Fremont, Nebraska is. From Santee to Niobrara River, here they saw a Pa-snu-tah dead (an Elephant) ... PLC identified this animal as a "hairy elephant" ... ... The Twin Buttes were the places for the medicine men to perform. There is a cave in the east one there is where they saw a prehistoric animal, the Pah-snu-tah ... According to PLC this "hairy elephant" was alive." PLC [Peter Le Claire] ... in his "History" (p. 18) and in an interview, gives (and gave) the term Pásnuta (pa-snu-tah) for both the bones of extinct elephants and for the hairy mammoth allegedly seen by the Ponca near Butte, Nebr. He mentioned that this term w...

There is supposed to be an animal called håtcko-tcåpko–"long ears." It is about the size of a mule, has immense ears, and a very hideous appearance generally. It has a disagreeable odor and causes a dangerous disease, but fortunately it is rarely seen. There are two varieties of this animal, one of a brown color nearly black, the other of a slate color. Another creature is called nokos oma, "like a bear." It is of about the size of an ordinary black bear, but it always carries its head near the earth. It has immense tusks which cross each other and when seen it is going along a trail with the gait of a pacer. More often, however, only the noise made by the males is heard, and this sounds something like "kåp kåp kåp kåp." The hatcko fåski, "sharp ears," seem to go in pairs and never travel east or west but always north or south. They are observed especially near the sources of small streams. They have sharp noses, bushy tails, and globular feet....