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, ...

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...

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 ...

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.

The mukade-kujira [ ムカデ-クジラ, centipede-whale] is as large as a whale, and has a mane, five fins on the back, and a two-cleft tail. Its legs number twelve, six being on each side; its flesh is coloured red and very poisonous, man being killed when he eats it. Note : Modified from a translation by Minakata Kumagusu, "The Centipede-Whale," Nature , Vol. 56, No. 1454 (9 September 1897)

... whilst watching from the dizzy heights its mirrored surface, my attention was directed to some strange animal, which I discovered to be one of those enormous sea-horses, to which I have already alluded, in speaking of the Island of San Lorenzo. Its appearance, from the great elevation at which I beheld it, was extremely singular. Its body seemed to be of a prodigious length, and covered with a short, glossy coat. With the exception of two great white tusks, projecting from the mouth on either side, the form of its head resembled that of a seal. This monster swam about with great rapidity, at times showing the greater portion of his body above the water, and at other times disappearing from view altogether.