A giant dead thing just washed up on a UK beach and nobody knows what it is

#CRYPTOZOOLOGY  #COVID #BASKINGSHARK

Mysterious sea creature washed up on beach.

 Image source: Ainsdale / Facebook

By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner

August 3rd, 2020 at 8:06 PM

A giant dead thing washed up on a UK beach and nobody can pinpoint exactly what kind of animal it was.

Theories ranged from a cow to a whale to a mysterious “sea monster,” but researchers are still studying it.

The best guess right now is that it was indeed some species of whale, but scientists can’t say exactly what kind.
The sea is full of wondrous and unique creatures that come in all shapes and sizes. At some point, the mound of decaying body parts you see above was one of those creatures… but what exactly what is? Nobody seems to know, but there are plenty of theories floating around.

Images of the so-called “sea monster” have flooded social media after they were snapped by a beachgoer in the UK. In the original post by Ainsdale, the location where the creature was discovered, it’s described as having four flippers and measuring approximately 15 feet long. So… what is it?

Due to the animal’s advanced state of decomposition, it’s very difficult to determine exactly what it is. Early guesses ranged from a cow (?) to a whale, to a “sea monster,” but that was before the experts got a chance to take a look at it. As you can see in the images, there are very few identifiable body parts left. Large bones stick out in every direction and the creature has clearly been rotting away for some time.

Speaking with the Echo, Stephen Ayliffe, Senior Advisor at Natural England explained that while they can’t determine the species, experts believe that they know what type of animal it was:

“We can confirm that an animal in a poorly decomposed state has washed up on Ainsdale beach and whilst the identification of the animal is unconfirmed it appears to be a species of whale,” he told the Echo. “We are working with an animal removal company to have the animal’s remains removed from the beach as soon as possible.”

Okay, so it’s probably not a “sea monster” and was simply an unfortunate or ill whale that met its end and washed ashore. That’s a bummer for the poor whale but at least we don’t have to worry about monsters, right?

This is hardly the first time a sea creature has washed ashore, leaving passersby to guess what it was before it died and decomposed. The “sea monster” theory tends to be a popular one. When you see a massive blob of body parts on the beach it’s easy to let your mind wander, I suppose.

In any case, it would appear that the experts have a pretty good handle on what they’re looking at, even if they can’t say for certain what family of whales this unfortunate specimen came from. Or maybe it’s a monster. Maybe.

Tags: sea monster, UK

Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and future tech. Most recently, Mike served as Tech Editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other web and print outlets. His love of reporting is second only to his gaming addiction.

The Essex island where terrifying 'sea monsters' washed up on the shore

Residents were mystified as to what the fishy creatures were


By Anna Willis
28 DEC 2021

Canvey Island Beach

Essex is full of weird and wonderful stories, but none more so than when a sea monster was spotted on the county's coast during the 20th century.

On a cold November day in 1953, a horribly decomposed carcass washed up on the shore at Canvey Island, according to MyLondon,

In the same year as the Canvey Floods, residents didn’t know what to make of this strange marine creature.

The monstrous amphibian was described as being more than two feet long, with “thick reddish-brown skin and bulging eyes, and gills.”

It also had a pulpy head and two leg-like fins.

A resident, Colin Day, remembered seeing the sea-monster as a child.

He said: “I was THERE. I was a young lad of nine at the time.

“I noticed a group of peers in a crowd on the beach.

“Kids were prodding it with their spades.

“I actually touched it!

“I thought it was a person at first as I could only see part of it through the crowd.

“Its flesh was NOT fish-like scales.

“It was a pinkish colour and looked like wobbly human flesh with cellulite, a sort of orange peel texture.

“I remember shouting to the other kids “It’s a mermaid” over and over.

“I have to say that even at 66, my long-term memory is excellent, especially about the day I saw my first mermaid.”

The remains of the dead animal were cremated quickly, and the residents of Canvey Island continued on with their lives.

Until another sea monster appeared on the shoreline the following year.

Spotted by Reverend Joseph D. Overs in August 1954, he described the beast as being “over four feet long, with staring eyes and a large mouth” in a local newspaper report.

A photo of the Canvey Island sea monster seen in 1954, and reported in a local newspaper (Image: Canvey Island Archive)

Experts had no idea what these terrifying creatures were, although locals thought the sea monsters may be anglerfish, with their mouths packed full of razor-sharp teeth and bulging eyes.

Locals also insisted the fish had ‘humanoid’ features, leading to rumours of ‘sea-monster’ sightings.

Today, the most likely categorisation of the sea-monsters seen in the 1950s is a monkfish.

Comparing a photo of the fish to one taken of the sea monster, both have wide, gaping mouths, a similarly shaped flat, rounded body, two short fins at either side and a small tail.

No more ‘sea monsters’ were seen on Canvey Island after that second sighting, but other mysterious creatures were noticed in following years.

One islander said: "When I returned to Canvey and lived in Bardenville Road around 1962-3, we had some other rather unwelcome visitors.

“They were furry, anything up to 2 ft long, had a platypus like flat tail and the head of a rat.

"My sister noticed the first one, which must have come from the creek, in our back garden. She told mum about an oversized rat.

"Shortly afterwards, the Coypus were reported in the local press and Islanders warned to keep clear of them as they would attack.

“I’m surprised nobody else has mentioned them as it was quite scary at the time."

FORTEAN PHENOMENA

'It looks like baby Nessie!' Mystery sea creature washes up on Dorset beach

Story by Jessica Warren For Mailonline • Yesterday 

A mystery creature found washed up on a British beach has been dubbed a 'mini Loch Ness Monster' after photos of its remains left people baffled.

Lindsay Freeman said she spotted what 'looked like a sea monster' while on the beach in Poole, Dorset, and could not figure out what it was.

She said: 'I was walking on the beach at the time. It caught my eye because it was so unusual looking and large.

'I couldn't think of an animal that had a tail like a shark, but also legs like a turtle. It also looked like it had little arms and a very strange head.

'It looked like a sea monster.'


A mystery creature found washed up on a British beach has been dubbed a 'mini Loch Ness Monster' after photos of its remains went viral

© Provided by Daily Mail


Lindsay Freeman said she spotted what 'looked like a sea monster' while on the beach in Poole, Dorset

© Provided by Daily Mail

She continued: 'I thought it was very cool and wanted to know more.

'I sent an email to my family first and when we couldn't figure it out, it just ate at me — I wanted to know what it was; it had to have an explanation.

'I've never encountered something like this.'

Ms Freeman spotted the remains in November, but only shared her images online last week, where she attracted a flurry of bemused responses.

Several said it was a 'baby Loch Ness Monster' taking a break from the Highlands.

One commenter took a guess at a Liopleurodon, a prehistoric predator of the deep last seen some 150 million years ago.

Another suggested it was a facehugger, the parasitic movie monster from the 1979 flick, Alien.

And one self-proclaimed marine biologist said it was a sea cucumber.


One person suggested it was a Liopleurodon, a prehistoric predator of the deep last seen some 150 million years ago

© Provided by Daily Mail

'I thought it was some kind of strange shark with legs,' said Ms Freeman.

'It was definitely smooth like a fish or water animal. Friends and family guessed it was a dogfish, turtle without a shell, or the Loch Ness Monster. None [of these answers] seemed satisfying.

'Online, there were lots of suggestions like dogfish, turtle, salamander, lizard, sea monster, Loch Ness monster.

'Once we posted it, we got a flood of funny and serious responses — it seemed to capture many people's imaginations.'

But some of those commenting may have spotted the real answer.

Several suggested it was a ray of some sort, perhaps with its fins or 'wings' missing.


Rob Deaville, project manager for the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, said it looked like 'the remains of a skate or a ray'. 

File image© Provided by Daily Mail

Rob Deaville, project manager for the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, agreed that it appeared to be an elasmobranch — a grouping that includes rays and sharks.

He said: 'I'm not an expert in elasmobranch identification, but to my untutored eye, this looks like the remains of a skate or a ray.

'It looks like there are claspers next to the tail and eyes dorsally on the top of the head.

'I assume the pectoral fins have been removed and the rest of the body discarded.'

For Ms Freeman too, it's the answer that makes the most sense.

She said: 'There was some suggestion of how it might have lost its wings — like it was caught by fishermen and eaten.

'I am very curious to know how it ended up in its current state.'

CRYPTOZOOLOGY

The Sandy Hook Sea Serpent

The North Shrewsbury (Navesink) River is one of the most scenic estuaries on the Eastern Coast of America. Known for luxury yachts, stately homes, and iceboating, it is hardly the place you would expect to find the legend of a sea serpent. But, in the late nineteenth century it was the location of one of many well-documented and unexplained sightings of mysterious sea creatures that plagued the waters of the North Atlantic.
The creature in question was seen by several people, all who were familiar with local sea life. While returning from a daylong outing, Marcus P. Sherman, Lloyd Eglinton, Stephen Allen and William Tinton, all of Red Bank, encountered the monster. The Red Bank Register reported the witnesses to be sober and respectable local merchants.
At around 10:00 P.M. the yacht Tillie S., owned by Sherman, was making its way back to Red Bank after a picnic at Highlands Beach. The men had enjoyed a pleasant Sunday evening escaping the warm early summer weather. The moon was shining bright, providing for high visibility as the yacht cut through the water. A stiff summer breeze was blowing and they rounded the Highlands and headed toward Red Bank. At the tiller of the Tillie S., Marcus Sherman steered through the familiar waters. At the bow was Lloyd Eglinton, who kept watch for debris in the water ahead.

Artist’s rendition of the mysterious sea creature as it appeared in the December, 1887 edition of Scientific American.

Suddenly Eglinton yelled that there was something in the water dead ahead. Sherman steered “hard to port” to avoid the collision. As they looked to see what the obstacle was, they were shocked. There ahead of them was the Sandy Hook Sea Serpent that had been sighted many times over the preceding two years. So credible were the sightings of the Serpent two years earlier, that Scientific American had run an article issuing an opinion that the monster was in fact a Giant Squid. The article, complete with drawings, appeared in the December 27, 1887, edition of the prestigious scientific periodical.
The earlier sighting at Sandy Hook had been made by several credible witnesses. Most notably the members of the Sandy Hook Life Saving Service. The crewmembers had sighted a large monster in the cold waters just off Sandy Hook in November 1879. The sighting was so credible that scientists were dispatched to take statements. It is from these descriptive statements that it was determined the Sandy Hook Sea Monster was, in fact, a giant squid. For the next several years there were reports of all types of sea serpent sightings up and down the east Atlantic Coast.

Illustration by Ryan Doan.

What the Red Bank men saw was surely no giant squid. It was described as about 50-foot long and serpentine in shape. It swam with snakelike undulations slowly and steadily through the water. As it passed halfway past the bow, its head rose from the water giving forth a mighty roar. The head was described as small and somewhat resembling a bulldog’s in shape. It had two short rounded horns on its head just above its eyes. The eyes we said to be the size of silver dollars. Bristles adorned the upper lip of the monster, much like those that would be found on a cat. The beast’s nostrils were quite large and flattened. The serpent-like body tapered to a sword like pointed tail. The frightened men stared in disbelief as it slowly and leisurely swam toward the shore of Hartshorne’s Cove. As the monster disappeared into the night, the men made their way back to Red Bank with a monster of a story to tell.
The men of the Tillie S. were not the only ones to see the creature. Other boaters on the water saw the serpent and gave near identical descriptions. In all over a dozen boaters had seen the strange creature on his nocturnal swim. Over the next months and years there would be other sightings of the monster in the Navesink. In time it came to be known as the Shrewsbury Sea Serpent. No scientific explanation was ever given for the sightings, as had been done for the so-called Sandy Hook Sea Serpent, however the description is not totally without merit. Other than the size, the description is very similar to that of the Oarfish. In any case the mystery remains as to the true identity and fate of the Sea Serpent.

The preceding article  by Robert Heyer is featured in issue #43 Weird NJ magazine.

John Wayne's Wildest Non-Western Movie Sees Him Fight A Sea Monster (He Almost Turned It Down)

BYCHARLES NICHOLAS RAYMOND

SCREEN RANT

PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO


Despite being given a chance to team up with an acclaimed director, John Wayne nearly turned down a chance to fight a sea monster in a wild 1942 film.



SUMMARY

John Wayne's versatile filmography included sea monster movie "Reap the Wild Wind," a unique break from his usual Westerns and war films.

Wayne's character in "Reap the Wild Wind" challenges his traditional roles by losing a fight and not getting the girl in the end.

Despite initial reluctance, starring in "Reap the Wild Wind" actually enhanced John Wayne's Hollywood reputation and led to more opportunities.

Despite being a huge critical and commercial success, John Wayne's only sea monster movie is far from one of his best-known films. Although famous primarily for headlining Westerns and war films, the Hollywood action legend wasn't associated exclusively with those two genres. At numerous points in his long career in Hollywood, Wayne broke away from his standard formula.

In addition to a multitude of Westerns and war classics, Wayne also held lead roles in romantic comedies, adventure films, modern-day dramas, and more. One of these periods was in the early 1940s, even though he had recently made his first massive Western hit, Stagecoach, in 1939. John Wayne took time to star in a number of non-Westerns, including The Shepherd of the Hills, A Man Betrayed, and more. After starring opposite Joan Blondell in 1942's Lady for a Night, Wayne appeared in Reap the Wild Wind, which would go on to become a unique entry in his filmography.

Reap The Wild Wind Bucks 2 Massive John Wayne Movie Trends

Reap the Wild Wind was an unusual movie for Wayne for more than one reason. Taking place in the 19th century, the 1942 adventure epic featured an ending in which the main characters battled a monster-sized giant squid. Wayne played the role of Jack Stuart, a ship captain who winds up in a love triangle with the other two leads, Ray Milland's Steven Tolliver and Paullette Goddard's Loxi Claiborne. A dispute over what caused a mysterious shipwreck - which Jack was taking the blame for - resulted in Jack and Steve teaming up to fight the 45-foot-long squid in the ocean in Reap the Wild Wind's ending.

As if John Wayne fighting a sea monster rather than a Western outlaw isn't surprising enough on its own, it's only part of what makes Reap the Wild Wind such a strange movie for the actor. True to his "tough guy" image, John Wayne characters regularly get involved in gunfights and brawls, and provided that the fight is fair, there's always an expectation for them to come out on top. However, that's not what happens in Reap the Wild Wind, which pits Jack against Steve. Despite initially painting Jack as 'the hero' of the story, it's actually Steve who wins their fist fight - and the one who ends up with the two men's love interest at the end of the film.

Why John Wayne Almost Turned Down His Reap The Wild Wind Role

Interestingly, Reap the Wild Wind taking such an unexpected direction with a John Wayne movie almost resulted in the actor passing up the role. According to Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eymann, getting Wayne to accept the part of Jack took some convincing, partially because of the fight his character was to lose to Steve. The book claims that after the director said that the role wouldn't lead to any loss of dignity, Wayne told DeMille that being beaten up by Ray Milland would "lose anybody their dignity."

It's important to keep in mind that although Wayne was not necessarily Hollywood's biggest star in 1942 and many of his biggest films were still years away, Wayne was still considered a leading actor by this point. Wayne had already made Stagecoach and was accustomed to getting top billing. In Shooting Star: A Biography Of John Wayne, Maurice Zolotow revealed that Wayne expressed his concerns to DeMille about playing what he felt was a supporting part. But as the book says, DeMille managed to sway Wayne through his persistence, telling the actor, "I want you very much. I give you my word of honor that I will do you justice."

How Reap The Wild Wind Helped John Wayne's Career




Reap the Wild Wind isn't usually mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Red River, Sands of Iwo Jiwa, Rio Bravo, or Stagecoach, but even so, it remains an important milestone in the Hollywood icon's career. It received critical acclaim at the time, including three Academy Award nominations. The positive buzz it had earned at the time, combined with the prestige that comes with starring a Cecil DeMille film, helped improve Wayne's reputation and garnered him additional interest from other studios.

Zolotow wrote in Shooting Star that John Wayne had said of his career after Reap the Wild Wind, "I had no trouble holding up my head in Hollywood." Based on his comments, putting aside his reservations about the Jack Stuart role was the right move for the actor. After all, it obviously didn't harm his image, as his litany of "tough guy" roles only piled up as the years passed.

 

CASE KRAKED 

Google Maps sleuth ‘discovers ‘Kraken sea monster prowling the ocean’ in chilling image

• Jacob Bentley-York

• Sep 22 2021

A CURIOUS Reddit user has revealed how he spotted a “Kraken" sea monster in a distorted image on Google Maps.

The online sleuth used the forum to share his chilling discovery - which has now sparked a number of theories.

2

The strange image can be seen on Google EarthCredit: Reddit

2

An artist's impression of the Kraken, a mythological sea monsterCredit: Getty

A Kraken is a sea monster from Greek mythology which reportedly possessed tremendous size and strength.

Taking to the forum, he wrote: "I'm not familiar with how Google decides to render certain objects via satellite or whether there have been cases of recorded volcanic disturbances but this does not appear to be any sort of vessel and its sheer length rivals the maximum recorded blue whale.

"Let me know what you guys think it is!"

The post was soon inundated with comments as imaginative viewers began to theorise what the object could be.

One said: "I've also done some research over the last few years and according to satellite images this wasn't around in 1800s or even for a long period of time after that."

Another quipped: "Looks like giant squid vs a sperm whale."

However, other users on Reddit were quick to point out that the image was most likely a rock.

One internet user agreed, writing: "Apparently it's a rock."

A fellow user chimed in, claiming that the Kraken enthusiast was simply “trying to explain the rock theory".

‘This thing meant business’: 1976 sea creature encounter off southwestern NS revisited

Kathy Johnson | Posted: July 7, 2021


CAPE SABLE ISLAND, NS – It was 45 years ago, between July 5 and 9, 1976, that five Cape Sable Island fishermen fishing off southwestern Nova Scotia on three different boats, on three different days, had encounters on the same fishing grounds with a sea creature unlike anything they'd seen before.

It’s certainly an experience 69-year-old Rodney Ross has never forgotten.

He's the only fishermen of the five still alive.

1976 story in the Yarmouth Vanguard. - File Photo


The encounters

The late Eisner Penney was the first to have an encounter – on July 5, 1976 – when fishing on Pollock Shoal, about eight to nine miles off the southern coast of Cape Sable Island, recalls Ross.

“Eisner seen it on a Monday,” Ross says. “When he got done fishing he was headed home and noticed this thing chasing him was out of the water, probably 10 to 15 feet out of the water and it chased him three, four miles or more and kept picking up steam. He didn’t lose it until he got into real shoal water – what we call the horse race – and it went under.”

When Ross set sail with his father Keith for Pollock Shoal two days later, they were unaware of Penney’s encounter.

“We went there Wednesday," he says. "We were fishing, doing pretty good, the tide started to go, so dad went down in the cud to get something to eat.”

Ross continued fishing on the deck. Back then they hauled by hand. No machines. He was getting one or two fish every sound.

But then, he says, it was like everything died.

"The gulls disappeared. The hags disappeared. I made three or four sounds, but nothing," he says.

"I could hear this noise like a swishing noise. It was thick fog . . . I seen this black thing coming through the water. It was like a hump, three or four feet out of water – this hump with two big eyes."

South Side fisherman Rodney Ross looks through his collection of memorabilia about the sea creature he and four other fishermen including his father Keith seen between July 5 and 9, 1976, on the Pollock Shoal off Cape Sable Island’s southern coast. 

KATHY JOHNSON

What is that?

At first he thought it was a sunfish and called to his dad to come out and see what he thought it was. He peeked out and said, "sunfish," but when the thing came back seconds later, his father didn't know what to think.

"He realized it wasn’t a sunfish. We watched this thing 15, 20 minutes. It would swim down by, pretty near go out of sight, swim back up to the westward and not one time would it look at us. It never went under. A whale, you can hear them a mile away. Not once did this thing blow."

"It was like it was ignoring us except for this one time. He turned and was looking right at me.”

Ross estimated it was about 70 to 80 yards from the boat.

“Dad went up and started the engine. We knew something was going to take place. It started coming for the boat. It kept coming, rising out of water. The last of it – it was about 15 feet out of water and opened his mouth. He was coming aboard. He was after me," says Ross.

"Dad waited until it was about 15, 20 yards away and opened it wide open and we shot ahead. I ran up underneath the house, turned and looked and could see this big body come out of water. He just clipped the stern of the boat."

"This thing meant business. If we had sat there, we would have been gone. He would have been half way on to the boat.”

Ross says the sea creature “looked liked a giant sculpin with big eyes, bigger than the rest of its body."

"It was full of barnacles, coral and had these rows of teeth – tusk looking things in his mouth. It didn’t have a whales tail, sort of like a cod tail.”

A drawing by the late Keith Ross of what the South Side Sea Monster looked like.

 “My father was no artist, but it did look something like that,” said Rodney Ross.

Their getaway

If it wasn’t for his father’s quick thinking to start the engine and wait until it got just close enough that it couldn’t turn, Ross shudders to think what would have happened.

“If people would have found wreckage of our boat, they would have thought we were run over by a steamer. Who would have thought we got ate by a sea monster?”

At the time of the encounter Ross says the boat was weighted to an anchor.

“We just shot up over the anchor and we could hear it hit the stern of the boat. It kept coming and kept raising out of water probably 10 to 15 feet out of water with its mouth wide open. If it had kept coming the top of his mouth would have been over my head.”

Dumfounded, the two fishermen sat there for about an hour and never spoke.

But "by and by," he says, they heard it again.

The swishing noise.

"We didn’t press our luck. We hauled anchor and took off. We seen this boat on our radar, so we steamed down to the boat. It was Eisner Penney, the guy that seen it Monday. I said to him, 'Eisner you want to get out of here if you see what we just seen,' and I remember him saying just as plain, ‘You don’t have to tell me what you seen because I seen it Monday.'"

That was enough fishing for everyone.

Penney threw everything in the middle of his platform and they all headed in.

As reported in the 1976 Yarmouth Vanguard. - FIle photo


"If there's a devil, that was it"

When fellow fisherman Edgar Nickerson initially heard about the sea creature encounter, he had laughed, according to an interview and story in the July 14, 1976, Yarmouth Vanguard newspaper.

“I thought it was funny. As a matter of fact, on Friday I bragged on my radio that I had Pollock Shoal all by myself,” he had said in the interview.

Only they weren't alone.

Nickerson and his 15-year-old son Robert were pulling gear when the sea creature appeared.

“It kept coming up. I thought it was a whale and I kidded to my son that it was coming after him," he had told Vanguard journalists Fred Hatfield and Alain Meuse 45 years ago.

"I turned on my sounder. That usually scare whales away. But not this thing. It kept coming and coming."

"It was a horrible looking thing I tell you. If there’s a devil, that was it.”

Photos of four of the fishermen from the 1976 Yarmouth Vanguard: Keith Ross, Rodney Ross, Edgar Nickerson and Eisner Phinney. 

PHOTOS BY FRED HATFIELD AND ALAIN MEUSE - File photo

After the encounters, nobody went fishing for a few weeks, Ross says.

“We didn’t go back there that year. When three different boats on three different days seen this creature in the same area, something was there.”

Ross remembers coming home the day after seeing the sea creature and going to visit his neighbours Weldon Cox and Seaton Nickerson, who were retired fishermen that had made a living on the water all their lives.

“They always waved for me to come over, so I went over and told my story. They looked at me and said back in 1930s . . . they told me the names of two fishermen who had an encounter with a creature off here, much the same as what we seen," says Ross, who can’t remember the names he was given.

Ross notes all of the sightings were two days apart and all of the fishermen who saw the sea creature were on fishing boats that were green.

Over the years, he's collected clippings and mementos about the encounter, and about other sea creature encounters that people have sent to him.

South Side fisherman Rodney Ross still has the handline fishing gear he was using the day he and his father Keith encountered a sea creature on the Pollock Shoal off Cape Sable Island’s southern coast. “This is the actual one that I was using back in 1976. We called it a Christmas tree. My father-in-law made it for me.” 

KATHY JOHNSON - Saltwire network

Ongoing interest

Back in the 1970s or 1980s, Ross gave a talk to the students at the Barrington Municipal High School about the encounter. He still has all the thank you letters and pictures drawn by the students of what they thought it looked like. Whatever they had seen was dubbed the South Side Sea Monster.

“When my father was living, people used to call him all the time,” says Ross. “We had a guy come from Florida one time; he was telling us about how many different things they discover every year. It could be ants, could be anything. Wartime they used to dump stuff in really deep water … it could have been something got into that,” he says, and was deformed.

Or something that was in an underwater cave had gotten out, or some sort of prehistoric thing, speculates Ross.

“Who knows what’s out there? It’s a big ocean,” he says.

Ross says he's usually contacted several times a year from someone wanting to know about the encounter.

Last fall Ross he was contacted by award winning author Max Hawthorne of New York who wanted to include Ross’s experience in a book he was writing. The book, 'Monsters and Marine Mysteries,' was just released several months ago. “I’m one of the chapters," says Ross.

Ross has only publicly spoke about his encounter a few times over the years. One of his presentations made in 2017 – South Side Sea Monster Story – is available on YouTube.

Thank you letters and drawings by students from the Barrington Municipal High School are among the keepsakes in Rodney Ross’s collection about the sea creature he seen in 1976 that was dubbed the South Side Sea Monster.

 KATHY JOHNSON


What's in the ocean? Sea serpent stories

Throughout the years there have been numerous documented sightings of sea serpents, mermaids, mermen, giant lizards and squid, monstrous fish, and a great sea monster in waters off Nova Scotia’s coastline.

The Serpent Chronologies, Sea Serpents and other Marine Creatures from Nova Scotia’s History, published by the Nova Scotia Museum in 2015, “is an annotated, systematic, account of reports of sightings of large serpents and other mysterious creatures recorded in Nova Scotia waters.” It includes Mi’kmaw petroglyphs, elements of captured oral history and documents excerpted from both the popular press as well as the scientific literature over the centuries, reads the abstract.

“Where appropriate, these are discussed in terms of the culture of the times, as well our current understanding of natural history. Illustrations have been created where there was sufficient information recorded, and based on these and the descriptions provided, these drawings reflect the nature of the creatures described in a modern context." it reads. "It becomes evident that the chronology of such reports is a reflection, to a great part, of the state and development of both popular and scientific cultures of Nova Scotia throughout these times.”

The book, available to download as a PDF, chronicles documented sightings from the 1600s up to 2003, when there was an encounter with a sea serpent in Alder Point, Cape Breton.

Written by Andrew J Hebda, the author concludes by saying, “As was pointed out in the beginning: Some of these are true accounts of events while others may be exercises in creativity in writing. In some cases, it is not obvious which is which.

"We should keep in mind what the late Dr. Fred Aldrich was reported to have said when commenting on marine marvels in the North-West Atlantic Ocean: 'We know more about the backside of the moon than the bottom of the sea.'”

An editorial cartoon in the July 21 1976, Vanguard.

Tetrapod Zoology
My New Book Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths

Much of my 2015 was taken up by the writing of several books, some of which are, I’m pleased to say, due to see print in 2016. Today I’m happy to announce that the first of these is out: it’s my Arcturus book Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths (Naish 2016)...

By Darren Naish on February 16, 2016


Right now, Hunting Monsters only exists as an ebook. If you’re at all like me, this might be something of a disappointment, since I don’t get much satisfaction from ebooks and think of them more as badly formatted word documents, not as books at all.

Front cover of Naish (2016). I like it.

Anyway, if it sells well enough in digital format, we’ll then be releasing a hardcopy version. The good news is that the ebook version is criminally cheap (£2.39, US$3.45). Also, remember that you don’t need a kindle to read it – you can download a kindle app, for free, for any device, and thereby read it on your smartphone or PC or whatever.

There are a large number of books out there on cryptozoology already, so what’s special about this one? Hunting Monsters is a sceptical, pro-science take on cryptozoology; something along the lines of Binns (1984), Campbell (1986), Radford & Nicklin (2006) and Loxton & Prothero (2013). But that doesn’t mean that it’s a vicious debunking that leaves us all sad and disheartened – we can get something positive out of this; read on.
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Hugh Gray's Loch Ness monster photo is not a swimming dog or a giant salamander or worm-like animal, but a swan with a submerged head. This explains why it's so white. Look carefully and you can see the wings, tail and ankle joint. Swan image by Peter Gray (no relation... I presume!), from Naish (2016).

A reasonable amount of novel investigation of cryptid sightings and images is recounted. Classic water monster episodes like the Daedalus and Valhalla accounts and the Sandra Mansi photo are discussed in view of recent evaluations, and I’ve also included much of the new work on lake monster images released by Dick Raynor. Without giving too much away, I want to say that the famous Hugh Gray Loch Ness monster photo of 1933 is not a swimming dog, or a salamander-like beast, or giant anachronistic Tullimonstrum… but a swan. Yes, a swan. And the infamous Peter O’Connor photo of 1960 – the one that depicts what looks like an inflated plastic bag with a stick for a head – has proved to be the inverted hull of a kayak called a Tyne Prefect. You can even see the base of the rudder support!
Cropped version of the O'Connor Loch Ness monster photo - note how the far left part of the image (normally cropped out!) looks weird for what's meant to be part of an animal's body. It's a good match for the corresponding part of an inverted kayak (see Dick Raynor's study here).

And then there are my evaluations of Rilla Martin’s Ozenkadnook tiger photo, various of the key yeti and bigfoot accounts, a critical appraisal of the kraken (no, it is not the same thing as Architeuthis), the St Augustine blob and other sea monster carcasses, and more. I even obtained and read Jonathan Whitcomb’s ropen book…

Rilla Martin’s 1964 Ozenkadnook tiger photo - shown at left - has always been enigmatic and difficult to interpret. What's with the tall shoulders and pale stripes? (as per the interpretation at right, by Darren Naish). See Naish (2016) for current thoughts.

While previous authors have focused on the ecological and morphological problems attached to the superstar cryptids (for example: could a beast the size of Nessie really make a living in Loch Ness?; how could a creature like bigfoot evade detection in modern North America?), few have discussed the fact that cryptozoological hypotheses invoke very specific models pertaining to evolutionary history.

In recent years, some apparently good evidence for bigfoot has dissolved under scrutiny. Alleged dermal ridges have proved to be artifacts of the plaster-pouring process, as demonstrated by Matt Crowley (image of plaster ridges by Matt Crowley, used with permission). And claims that the lustrous pelt and realistic muscle tone of 'Patty' can't be replicated by a suit are highly questionable - look at the realistic tone and texture of the obviously fake suit on the right (photo by Darren Naish).

What’s notable is that, while cryptids themselves are posited as novel, exciting elements of the fauna, the evolutionary scenarios required to allow their existence virtually always involve novel, unprecedented events for which there is, alas, no evidence. The giant long-necked seals of the cryptozoological literature require that certain (unknown) pinnipeds evolved radical ecological, morphological and behavioural novelty; a view of bigfoot or the yeti as a giant, bipedal pongine requires that our views on the evolution of hominid bipedality and anatomy be substantially revised; arguments that the almas (or almasty or almasti) is a remnant Neanderthal are contingent on the idea that Neanderthals underwent radical change for which we have no evidence; and so on and on and on. Cryptozoologists have thought about this stuff a lot and written about it as well, but it has mostly evaded sceptical evaluation (for previous coverage see Conway et al. 2013).

Sea monsters and other mystery beasts - the creature shown here is Heuvelmans' 'Yellow-belly' - have taken on a life of their own ever since cryptozoologists have devised morphological configurations and evolutionary histories for them. But isn't this all a house of cards? Compare 'Yellow-belly' with the eyewitness accounts Heuvelmans based it on.

And what of the interplay between cryptozoology and creationism? I say stuff about that in my chapter on the mokele-mbembe and ropen (Naish 2016).
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A new frontier: cryptozoology as culture

However, I hope that Hunting Monsters is seen as more than a mere curmudgeonly debunking, or as yet another heavy-handed sceptical smackdown. One of my arguments, made repeatedly throughout the book, is that cryptozoology is culture. Even if cryptids don’t exist – in the corporeal, biological sense of the term – they still exist in the nebulous sense of their having a place in the psychological landscape, and this remains a fascinating issue worthy of further study. 

Blu Buhs (2009), required reading as goes the cultural context of bigfoot.

People ‘see’, describe and report the creatures they do because they interpret their recollections, sightings and encounters within the cultural framework in which they were raised. It is, so it seems, an inevitable consequence of being human that we imagine large, frightening creatures to lurk beneath the surface of the water, or human-shaped beasts in forests and other wild places.

There’s also a case to be made that people of a given subset will be more inclined to investigate or believe in mystery animals than others: this topic is explored at length in Blu Buhs (2009).

Indeed, the fact that belief in these creatures will not die – despite a compelling and impressive lack of evidence – makes it seem that they’re an almost immutable part of our psyche. Is there, then, really some ingrained need in humans to imagine, believe in, or see monsters? I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s a question worth asking and investigating.
 

Which Loch Ness monster would you like to believe in? We most certainly do not see consistent descriptions of a single biological entity.

Distinct from but linked to this apparent cultural role of cryptozoology is our ability to perform as witnesses and ‘data recallers’. It’s no secret that people generally perform very badly when it comes to describing and recalling observations, especially those made fleetingly or when under stress. And sceptics of cryptozoology often point to the field’s over-emphasis of the value of eyewitness data as one of its primary flaws (Loxton & Prothero 2013). How we perform as witnesses and recallers and why we fail or succeed when we do is another fascinating subject – and I say that it’s linked to the cultural role of cryptozoology because a case can be made that our preconceptions and biases are linked to cultural and societal archetypes, memes and concepts.

  

Standard reading on cryptozoological scepticism: Loxton & Prothero (2013).

We’re at an early stage in understanding this stuff. Or, at least, those of us who aren’t experts in it are at an early stage. What I’m saying – by now it’s probably clear – is that, while bigfoot and Nessie and so on might not be ‘real’, they’re likely ‘real’ enough, culturally and/or psychologically, to be significant to us. I think that that’s important. We’re calling this whole subject ‘post-cryptid cryptozoology’, and I hope that Hunting Monsters is perhaps epiphanic on this front to at least some of its readers.

So there we have it – long-time readers of Tet Zoo will know that this book represents the culmination of an evolving set of thoughts and hypotheses.

The Daedalus encounter of 1848 remains one of the most pivotal and influential of sea monster reports. Was it actually a misidentified rorqual, as argued by Galbreath (2015)? This is more compelling when you look at Lieutenant Edgar A. Drummond's sketch.

And finally...

As always with anything written by humans, there are a few errors that are making me cross. In a discussion of the Daedalus sea monster sighting, I say that the beast had no neck, and then immediately go on to say that its mane was located some way along… its neck. There’s also a contradiction as goes how the Daedalus monster is treated – it’s a skim-feeding Sei whale at one point (as per Gary Galbreath’s 2015 article) and an unresolved enigma at another. Whoops. And there are a few dumb typos and incorrect terms, as there always are. I hope you can forgive these transgressions.

For previous Tet Zoo articles relevant to the issues covered here, see...
Best lake monster image ever: the Mansi photo
A ‘lake monster’ caught on film at Lake Champlain
Rilla Martin’s 1964 photo of the ‘Ozenkadnook tiger’
Cryptozoology at the Zoological Society of London. Cryptozoology: time to come in from the cold? Or, Cryptozoology: avoid at all costs?
The amazing Hook Island sea monster photos, revisited
The Cryptozoologicon (Volume I): here, at last
Is Cryptozoology Good or Bad for Science? (review of Loxton & Prothero 2013)

Refs - -

Binns, R. 1984. The Loch Ness Mystery Solved. W.H. Allen & Co, London.

Blu Buhs, J. 2009. Bigfoot: the Life and Times of a Legend. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Campbell, S. 1986. The Loch Ness Monster: The Evidence. The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, UK.
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Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M. & Naish, D. 2013. Cryptozoologicon Volume I. Irregular Books.

Loxton, D. & Prothero, D. R. 2013. Abominable Science! Columbia University Press, New York.

Naish, D. 2016. Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths. Arcturus, London.

Radford, B. & Nickell, J. 2006. Lake Monster Mysteries. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)


Darren Naish


Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com!

Recent Articles
The End of Tetrapod Zoology, ver 3
Dinosaurs in the Wild: An Inside View
Speculative Zoology, a Discussion

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'Sea monster’ roamed the Grand Strand in 1884

STEVE ROBERTSON
Aug 11, 2021

Five-year-old Jessamine Buck got the scare of her life when she encountered a “sea monster” during a visit to the beach in 1884.

As an old woman, the memory remained fresh in her mind as she related the tale to Janet Langston Jones, who recorded the conversation in the Vol. 13, No. 4 edition of the Independent Republic Quarterly.

The 25-mile journey from her home in Bucksport to beaches near present-day Pawleys Island was quite an ordeal involving a river crossing and the fording of tidal creeks.


“One of our favorite summer pastimes was shell hunting and on this particular day Mama consented for my older sister, Iola, and me to go the beach…although Mama warned us against swimming,” said Jessamine. “On this occasion, to make sure that we did not get into trouble, she sent Rozanna, the maid, along with us.”

Jessica said the little party gathered huge conch shells and played at the edge of the surf, playing dash and dare with the waves.

“It was then that we saw the monster,” said Jessamine. “Just beyond an incoming breaker, he raised his whiskered yellow head.”

The little girl said she screamed and ran.

“It was a long way back to the house; and left far behind by the older two, I despaired of ever making it. My hot sticky clothes held my body close. The wind seemed to encircle me with hot arms of restraint while the loose sand sucked me down. I felt that I was scarcely moving up the steep side of the sea oats that scratched my wet face as I struggled to the top of the sandhill.”

She dropped to her seat and slid down the slope on the other side, not daring to look back to see if she was being pursued.

By the time she reached the porch of her home, Iola and Rozanna were already there telling her mother the story. Her mother gently unfastened Jessamine’s bonnet and loosened her damp hair.

“Now,” she said with incomprehensible calm, “Just tell me, what did the thing look like?”

“Like a big yellow dog, Mama. Like an enormous yellow dog. Except it wasn’t a dog. Oh, Mama, let’s go. Let’s go home right now. I don’t want to stay here another minute. Please let Sam take us back to Bucksport.”

Jessamine’s mother instructed the servant, Sam, to go on horseback to check out the situation.

Before long, he came riding hard over the sand dunes. Pulling the horse up to the porch, he panted, “The chilluns are right Missus. It’s a monster for sho’. I’ve lived in these parts a long time, but I ain’t never seen nothing like that afore in all my days.”

Sam said the sea monster bellowed, “This ain’t my home. This ain’t my home.”

His recollection proved to be true because the grownups decided to read the newspapers, only to learn that a sea lion had escaped from a zoo in Baltimore and had been seen off the coast.

It was captured later near Charleston.

“No matter that the mystery was solved and the monster caged: for the remainder of that summer Iola and I did not go back to the strand without strong adult protection,” recalled Jessamine.

Read more history of Horry County at
www.robertson-blog.com

Publisher
steve.robertson@myhorrynews.com

Weekend Break: 

The North Coast's legendary sea monsters
By Julia Triezenberg For The Astorian


This drawing is a 1734 sketch of a sea serpent by Hans Egede.
Columbia River Maritime Museum


This shadowbox is just one example of the ways that sea monsters are a part of maritime imagination.
Columbia River Maritime Museum


Legends emerge in a variety of ways. While they often tell the origin stories of a particular group or place, it can be hard to pinpoint their birthplaces. There is rarely any physical evidence to prove that a legend is true. But they continue to be passed down from generation to generation, becoming a defining feature in communities.

The Pacific Northwest is no stranger to tales of mysterious creatures. Sea monsters, like the legends that talk about them, come in all shapes and sizes. They’ve become a mainstay in maritime cultures around the world. Sailors would tell these tales to give some explanation to tragedy at sea, to make their lives sound more adventurous to landlubbers or to make sure they weren’t left out of the buzz of a sea monster story. Even though there is advanced technology to explore ocean depths, researchers don’t know about everything that may be down there.


The North Coast has several tales of sea monsters frequenting local waters.


The sea serpent “Claude” was first sighted near the mouth of the Columbia River in 1934. L.A. Larson, a mate on the lightship Columbia LV-88, is believed to be the first human to have spotted Claude. Larson described Claude as, “About 40 feet long. It had a neck some 8 feet long, a big round body, a mean-looking tail and an evil, snaky look to its head.”

Other members of the Columbia’s crew confirmed Larson’s sighting, as did the captain and crew of the U.S. Lighthouse Service tender Rose.

Descriptions of “Colossal Claude” or the “Columbia River Sea Serpent” differ from person to person. While Larson said that the monster had an evil, snaky look to it, Capt. Chris Anderson of the schooner Argo reported several years later that, “His head was like a camel’s … He had glassy eyes and a bent snout he used to push a 20-pound halibut off our lines and into his mouth.”

The ship’s crews claim to have seen him for the next 20 years. Fishermen on the river reported sightings every so often. Claude hasn’t been seen around the Columbia River for about 70 years — since fishermen were telling their stories in the 1950s.

The North Coast’s second legendary celebrity is “Marvin,” who was originally spotted in 1963. In a videotape that has since been studied by some of the country’s leading marine biologists, divers from Shell Oil Co. captured footage of a massive creature moving past them.

Marvin reportedly is about 15 feet long, has barnacled bumps covering his body and swam in a spiral motion past the divers. Many scientists have examined the footage and debated how to explain Marvin’s appearance.

Some believe he is some type of jellyfish. Others are convinced that the sea monster is a remnant of prehistoric times and has only just decided to reveal itself to researchers in the last 60 years. There are also people who believe that Colossal Claude and Marvin are the same monster.

Although sightings of them have been scarce over the past few years, Marvin and Claude are still testaments to the mysticism that comes with living on the North Coast. Who knows when they may pop up again.


Julia Triezenberg is an educator at the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

https://www.dailyastorian.com/life/weekend-break-the-north-coasts-legendary-sea-monsters/article_ba4518c0-0373-11eb-bdce-dffe977dd10d.html

Archaeology mystery: Incredible discovery of 'sea monster' shipwreck sparked debate

ARCHAEOLOGISTS were baffled when they came across a "sea monster" figurehead from one of the world's best preserved shipwrecks.

By CHARLIE BRADLEY
PUBLISHED:  Tue, Aug 18, 2020

Baltic Sea: Medieval ship's figurehead found in 2015

The figurehead from a 15th century ship was recovered from the Baltic Sea near Sweden, more than 500 years after it sank. The Gribshunden is thought to be the world's best-preserved late medieval ship. Johan Ronnby, professor of marine archaeology, expressed the confusion researchers had when trying to decipher what exactly the figurehead represented. He said: ''It's a sea monster - and we have to discuss what kind of animal it is.

''I think it's some kind of fantasy animal - a dragon with lion ears and crocodile-like mouth. And there seems to be something in his mouth.

"There seems to be a person in its mouth and he's eating somebody."

Marcus Sandekjer of the Blekinge Museum added: "We don't have ships like this that have been recovered at all.

"It's something we haven't seen before, it's unique in the world and I think there will be more excavations around here with more unique objects.

"But this one we have today is just fantastic."
Archaeology news: (Image: Ingemar Jundgren)

Archaeology news: The figurehead was found in the Baltic Sea (Image: Ingemar Jundgren)

Mr Sandekjer also outlined the history of the ship, adding that it came from a time when historic explorer Christopher Columbus would have been active at sea.

He continued: "This ship comes from a time when Columbus was sailing across the ocean.

"This is the same period, so we can learn very much about how the ships were made and how they were constructed.

"Since there are no ships left from this time we just don't know how they were constructed."

Archaeology news: Marcus Sandekjer was amazed (Image: Ingemar Jundgren)

Mr Sandejker and Mr Ronnby discussed the Gribshunden in an interview with the BBC in 2015.

The Gribshunden, which belonged to Danish King John, is believed to have sunk in 1495 after it caught fire on its way from Copenhagen to Kalmar on Sweden's east coast.

The menacing appearance of figureheads on 15th century ships had the protective function of warding off evil spirits.

When divers first discovered the figurehead languishing at the bottom of the sea, they thought its snarl was similar to that of a dog.


Archaeology news: Johan Ronnby said it was a 'fantasy animal' (Image: Ingemar Jundgren)


Archaeology news: The Baltic Sea (Image: Ingemar Jundgren)

This fits with the name of the ship, the Gribshunden, which means griffon-dog.

Parts of armour and weapons have also been recovered, and are now on display in museums.

Researchers believe the ship was at the forefront of naval technology for its day.

The fire that sank it came at a time of political upheaval in the region, causing a major setback to King John's plan to unify Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Mr Sandekjer added: "The ship comes from a time just when Columbus was sailing across the ocean and Vasco da Gama also went to India, and this is the same period and we can learn very much about how the ships were made, how they were constructed since there are no ships left from this time."

Fossil of enormous sea monster and 'ultimate killing machine' discovered by scientists

Story by Catherine Shuttleworth • 

Fossil of enormous sea monster and 'ultimate killing machine' discovered by scientists

The skull of a colossal sea monster has been extracted from the cliffs of Dorset's Jurassic Coast.

The pliosaur was a marine reptile that terrorised the oceans roughly 150 million years ago. The fossil is two metres long and one of the most complete specimens of its type ever discovered.Palaeontologist Steve Etches told BBC News "it's one of the best fossils I've ever worked on. What makes it unique is it's complete."

"The lower jaw and the upper skull are meshed together, as they would be in life. Worldwide, there's hardly any specimens ever found to that level of detail. And if they are, a lot of the bits are missing, whereas this, although it's slightly distorted - it's got every bone present."

You really get a sense of how big the creature was when you realise the skull is longer than most humans are tall.

The fossil has 130 teeth, each tooth marked with fine ridges. These would have helped the pliosaur to pierce the flesh and then quickly extract its dagger-like fangs, ready for a rapid second attack.

"The animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space," says Dr Andre Rowe from Bristol University.

"I have no doubt that this was sort of like an underwater T. rex."

Fossil enthusiast Phil Jacobs came across the tip of the snout of the pliosaur lying in the shingle after a stroll along a beach near Kimmeridge Bay. Too heavy to carry, he rigged a makeshift stretcher to take the fossil fragment to safety with Steve Etches.

The soul will be featured in a special David Attenborough programme 'Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster' on BBC One on New Year's Day.