In 1976, at sea off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, while fishing, young Rodney Ross and his father saw a huge sea monster.
Then the news became a sensation, about which all local newspapers wrote. 42 years later, Rodney Ross recounted this story in detail at a recent UFO Festival in Shelburne.
“Now some people call this beast the 'South Side Monster', I don't know what it was, but it really looked like a monster,” says Ross.
The story began on a typical Monday, when the late fisherman Eisner Penny was fishing at a fishing site called Pollock Shoal, off Cape Sable. Having caught the right amount of fish, Penny swam home in his boat and suddenly noticed a large animal following him in the water.
“This creature frightened him so much that he moved towards the shore at full speed, but the monster did not lag behind. And then Penny saw from the water part of the body of this creature. This part was almost 4 meters long. Even more frightened, the fisherman directed his boat into shallow water, where the depth was just over 4 meters. The maneuver worked and the monster fell behind."
When Penny was on the shore, he told many fishermen what he saw, but no one believed him and, on the contrary, laughed at him.
But two days later on Wednesday Keith Ross and his son Rodney went fishing on their boat. They weren't among those who heard Penny's story about the monster, so without fear they went fishing in the same Pollock Shoal area near Cape Sable.
“The day was foggy. We managed to catch over 200 kg of cod, and then my father went to have lunch in the cabin. I stayed and decided to try fishing with a new tackle with several hooks. I threw them over and over again, but for some reason there was no fish.
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And then I heard some whistling noise nearby and after that I saw something large floating in the fog. I was expecting to see another vessel, but this something came out of the fog and looked like a huge hump with big eyes at the top of the head.
When I say that the eyes were large, I mean that each of them was ten inches (25 cm) wide and they were on the sides, about like the eyes of a crocodile"
In the drawing below, the creature is depicted by the artist as described by Rodney Ross.
The frightened teenager called his father and then together they watched as this creature floated past their ship. At first, it seemed to ignore the people, but then it looked with its own eyes directly towards Keith and Rodney.
“His eyes made my hair stand on end. When it swam very close to the boat, it rose above the water by about 3.5 meters, and then opened its mouth wide. And there were a lot of sharp teeth inside. These fangs rose one by one.
I took a good look at the visible part of it; it was all covered with shells adhered to the skin. In full length, it was about 15-18 meters, and the head was huge and massive, much larger than the rest of the body. And the tail fin was vertical (like fish, but not like whales).
We observed this creature for only 15 minutes, although it seemed much longer. Several times it completely disappeared under water and reappeared. And it was practically silent, only a wheezing breath was heard."
When this huge fish swam away, it almost hit the boat with its huge body, fortunately Keith Ross managed to turn on the engine and take the boat away from the impact. According to Rodney, his father most likely saved both of them from death.
Rodney Ross with a clipping from an old newspaper with the story of the monster.
When Keith and Rodney sailed away from the monster, they came across the boat of that very Eisner Penny, and he, upon hearing their story, told about his meeting with the monster, and also advised to swim aground to get rid of him.
But these three fishermen weren't the only ones who saw this monster. Two days later, on Friday, the late Edgar Nickerson and his son Robert met the monster, who also went fishing in the same ill-fated Pollock Shoal.
They noticed a large creature in the distance and managed to swim away before it approached their boat. Later, when the press collected all the eyewitness accounts, it was found out that back in 1934, local fishermen reported about a huge unknown sea animal.
Curiously, after 1976, no other encounters with the monster were recorded. Where did this huge fish go? Sailed to another place? Is she dead?
And who was she? Its description does not sound like the description of marine dinosaurs, it is definitely a fish, not a lizard. Maybe some ancient species that has survived to this day? The mystery remains unsolved.