At the beginning of the 19th century, the legend of the mysterious sea monster - the sea snake - was experiencing its finest hour. From 6 to 23 August 1817, over a hundred reputable witnesses saw a huge sea monster sailing near the port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. The scientific world reacted to reports about him with great interest.
On August 14, the monster revealed itself to a whole group of 20-30 people, among whom was Gloucester Justice of the Peace Lonson Nash. On the same day, several boats set off in pursuit of the monster, and in the afternoon the ship's carpenter Matthew Gaffney spotted "a strange marine animal, like a reptile." He saw only a part of it, about 10 meters long, carefully aimed and fired from a gun.
A sharp marksman, Gaffney thought he was hit, but the animal didn't seem to show concern. It turned rather sharply towards the boat, and those in it were afraid that the creature would rush into the attack. But instead, it plunged into the water like a stone, passed under the boat and surfaced on the other side, continuing to frolic and not paying the slightest attention to people.
The Serpent of Gloucester in old engravings
Later, Gaffney gave a description of the creature: smooth skin of a dark color, with a white throat and belly, a head the size of a ten-liter barrel, and a body length of about 12 meters. Bending in a vertical plane, like a moth caterpillar, this whopper developed a speed of 35 to 50 kilometers per hour.
Authoritative American experts agreed that the Gloucester monster cannot be a snake in any way - reptiles cannot wriggle vertically and directly go under water.
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In Europe, this find was treated much more skeptically, and after a while the French zoologist Charles-Alexander Le-Suer found out that this is nothing more than an ordinary snake with a twisted spine due to illness or injury. Scientists laughed at their American colleagues for a long time, and all the Gloucester events were thus discredited, which harmed the history of the sea serpent as a whole.
Meanwhile, similar marine creatures continued to be found off the coasts of New England and Canada, but it was many years before people began to take such evidence seriously again.
Witnesses from Daedalus and Valhalla
On August 6, 1848, the English ship "Daedalus" sailed near the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa. Suddenly, the midshipman noticed something in the sea, rapidly approaching the sailboat. He immediately alerted the officers, and seven crew members, including the ship's captain Peter McKay, had a clear view of what they called the giant sea serpent.
The visible part of the creature was more than 20 meters long, but did not exceed 30 centimeters in diameter. The color was dark brown, with a yellowish-white throat. The animal had a kind of mane resembling a bundle of algae.
Moving at a speed of 18-20 kilometers per hour, it did not seem to make twists - neither vertical nor horizontal - and did not even make jerks visible to the eye. It invariably kept its head like a snake, a meter from the surface, and never lost its course.
When the Daedalus returned to her native Plymouth, and this incident appeared in the London Times, the Lords of the Admiralty demanded a detailed report. McKay wrote the official paper, which was published. There was a noise. Since the description was typical, the message was believed. McKay and his officers had a well-deserved reputation for honesty, but the British, who had been fed with hoaxes for so long, could not believe in the existence of the monster.
Information about him came from sailors, priests, travelers, who often did not have the skills of scientific observation and were unable to determine the value and nature of what they saw. Therefore, despite reports from all over the world over the centuries, no scientist was seriously interested in the sea monster.
The situation changed dramatically in 1905, when two respected naturalists, members of the Zoological Society of London, saw a huge sea monster unknown to science.
On December 7, naturalists Mid-Waldo and Nicoll cruised on the Prince of Crawford's yacht Valhalla along the coast of the Brazilian state of Paraiba. Suddenly Mid-Waldo noticed a fin about two meters long, cutting the water a hundred meters from the ship. Looking closely, he made out an impressive body under the water surface.
When he pulled out the binoculars, a huge dark brown top and whitish head appeared above the waves on a long neck of the same color. The visible part of the neck was about two and a half meters long and as wide as a person of average body condition. The head resembled a turtle's head. Nicholl's testimony was similar to Midwald's observation, with one caveat: he said it was a mammal, not a reptile, although he did not vouch for accuracy.
Unique shot of Le Serrec
As sailing ships were supplanted by steam ships, reports of unknown or incomprehensible animals seen on the high seas became less and less frequent. The captains of the ships no longer needed, obeying the whim of capricious waves and sea currents, to leave the beaten ocean paths, and this, according to some cryptozoologists, is the reason that there were fewer interesting meetings. In addition, the noise of the engines certainly warned the animals of an impending danger.
But in 1965, new evidence of the existence of unknown animals appeared. French photographer Robert Le Serrec said that he was able to take the first pictures of the sea serpent. According to him, the meeting took place off the coast of Queensland (Australia) on December 12, 1964.
While the photographer with family and friend Henk de Jong was sailing on a boat along Stoynhaven Bay, his wife noticed a huge oblong object on the sandy bottom, less than 180 centimeters from the surface of the water. At first, De Jong thought it was the trunk of a large tree, but immediately it became clear that there was a living creature at the bottom: it wriggled like a giant tadpole with a large head and a snake body.
Le Serrec took some pictures, then pulled up in his motorboat and turned on the movie camera. Now it was possible to distinguish a one and a half meter lacerated wound on the back of the animal and a wide head resembling a snake.
At this moment, the children of Le Serrec were very frightened. The adults took them to the shore on a boat, while they continued their observation. As the creature stopped moving - it was seriously injured - they got even closer, making out two eyes and even brown stripes along the black body. Le Serrec and a friend thought about how to make the animal move, but were afraid that it might turn the boat over. Finally they decided to dive with an underwater camera and an underwater gun.
It was darker under the water than above, and nothing could be seen at a distance of 6 meters. One thing was clear - next to it was a real giant 25-30 meters long, with meter-long jaws and four-centimeter eyes, which seemed pale green with closed eyelids. When Le Serrec began to shoot, the monster suddenly opened its mouth and slowly, with a threat, turned towards the people. Friends urgently surfaced, quickly climbed into the boat and saw that the animal had disappeared.
Le Serrec's wife saw it float towards the sea, making horizontal twists - typical for an eel or reptile, but not for a mammal. On February 4, 1965, Le Serrec told the world this story, arousing burning interest in some and, naturally, another attack of skepticism in others. His filming was regarded by experts as inferior, representing "some kind of daub and solid spots." What was seen in the photographs could not be explained from the point of view of the available data, and the experts were forced to admit that the possibility of forgery was not excluded.
And yet, discarding mistakes, hoaxes and lengthy descriptions, scientists have identified nine distinct characteristics of the monster: long-necked, "sea horse", multihumped, with many fins, "giant otter", "giant eel", sea mammal, "father of all turtles" and yellow belly.
Some experts believe these are at least a few undefined marine animals, one of which is most likely a giant eel. Others argue in favor of zeiglodon, an extinct primitive whale whose remains were used to construct the "pseudo-snake" we have already mentioned, a major hoax of the 19th century. The rest of the scientists are inclined to conclude that this is a representative of an unknown genus of long-necked northern leopard seals (pinnipeds living in Antarctica).
One of the most popular and resilient versions is the sea serpent, the long-necked variation of the surviving dinosaurs. Another candidate for the sea serpent is the herring king, a frightening silvery fish with bright red fins extending straight from the head and paddle-shaped pectoral fins. But although the herring kings reach ten meters in length, their habits (inability to vertical twists) and bright color make them completely different from sea kites.
The list of contenders for the title of sea serpent is very long and even includes … logs and seaweed.
Snake phenomenon in California
In the afternoon of October 31, 1983, the Marine County, Calif., Maintenance crew was working on a section of Highway 1, just where it passes over the ocean. Straight below them stretched the sandy beaches of Stinson Beach, and beyond them the boundless Pacific Ocean. Shortly before two, the chief of the brigade broke off for a smoke break and looked at the sea - something not very clear and big was floating towards the coast. He immediately called his comrade, Matt Ratto, took the binoculars and looked closely.
The most interesting object to observe was a nudist bather. But then, through the glass of the device, Ratto, who had taken the binoculars from a friend, noticed a gigantic, dark-colored animal a quarter of a mile from the bather. Such a Ratto had never seen: slender, a hundred feet long, with three humps! So on an autumn day, Ratto first observed … a sea serpent.
He clearly saw how the animal poked its head out of the water and looked around. Then she changed the direction of movement, making a sharp turn; the head went under the water again, and the creature moved towards the sea.
Monster appearance options
Another witness, driver Steve Bior, determined by eye the speed of her movement - 40-45 miles per hour. To Biore, who saw only two humps, the creature looked like a long eel. All five workers that day saw the same sight, and their descriptions coincided in detail - in terms of size, color and habits.
Another witness, insurance agent Marilyn Martin, probably not wanting to tarnish his reputation, refused to testify at all. But his daughter said that he clearly saw the monster and described it as a four-humped creature - the largest of those that he had ever met.
And another eyewitness of the event - 19-year-old Roland Kerry - later told reporters that a week ago he had already seen this creature and told his girlfriend about it, but she made fun of him. But now he saw everything perfectly and will not let him laugh at himself!
Three days after the Stenson Beach incident, a group of observers saw a similar monster 400 miles south of Costa Mesa. Young Hutchinson, a 19-year-old surfer, revealed that it rose from the water near the mouth of the Santa Ana River, just ten feet away.
From him. At first, Hutchinson refrained from talking on this topic, rightly believing that he would be considered "crazy" - crazy. But after reading in the newspapers about the incident in Marin County, he gave up: "It was exactly what the workers described it - a long black eel."
Throughout the 20th century, mysterious creatures constantly appeared to people throughout the Pacific coast, but no one was able to determine what kind of animal they were talking about. Scientists were inclined to conclude that the 1983 case was the surfaced remains of a whale, glistening in the sunlight. Others believed that it was a herd of porpoises, stretched out in a chain. Ratto and Hutchinson rejected these assumptions: both knew perfectly well what whales were, and were firmly convinced that what they saw was not cetacean in any way!
The serpent will still appear
As we can see, stories about the sea snake and other unidentified underwater creatures continue to come, and the 1980s turned out to be the most "fruitful" years, just like the 1880s! Maybe this is due to certain life cycles of monsters?
By the way, stories about other mysterious sea giants, giant squids, have been common among sailors since ancient times. They probably formed the basis of the Scandinavian legend of the kraken, a huge sea monster, capable of sinking any ship with its tentacles, as well as the ancient Greek myths about Scylla and Charybdis.
Nevertheless, on the threshold of the 21st century, the giant squid remained virtually the only representative of the megafauna that had never been photographed alive (caught or in the wild). In 1993, an underwater photograph of a scuba diver and a giant squid was published in the book European Seashells.
However, the animal in the photograph was later identified as a sick or dying specimen of another large squid species (Onykia robusta). The first footage of live giant squid larvae was captured in 2001 and shown on the Discovery Channel.
And on September 30, 2004, researchers from Japan's National Science Museum and the Whale Watching Association took the first pictures of living giant squid in their natural environment. The same group on December 4, 2006 made the first video of a live giant squid.
Who knows, maybe one day the sea serpent will fall into the viewfinder in the same way?
Giant squid