In one of his novels, science fiction writer Arthur Clarke described the meeting of the heroes of the book with two sea serpents at the same time: "… Scientists clung to the windows and saw a magnificent spectacle. About twenty meters from them, slowly bending, two unknown creatures swam. Their length reached thirty. meters, and the thickness closer to the head was not less than two meters. The bodies of animals were covered with large iridescent scales, changing color from bright green on the belly to bluish-black on the back. The heads of the creatures were crowned with red crests stretching for almost a third of their bodies, their huge yellow eyes with dark pupils looked dispassionately at people. The seemingly unhurried movements of the creatures masked their agility, after five minutes they effortlessly overtook the submarine, whose speed exceeded 20 knots …"
Humanity “has known about the existence of the sea serpent since ancient times. The first mentions of meetings with this relic have come down to us from numerous legends and legends. Let us recall at least the tragic fate of Laocoon and his two sons, in which such creatures are involved. Can one doubt this myth if researchers have irrefutably proven the existence of Troy and the Trojan War? The mention of the sea serpent can also be found in the ancient Scandinavian sagas; Olaus Magnus spoke about it back in the Middle Ages. The fantastic creature and the ancient Celts did not ignore. However, more detailed descriptions of the serpent, differing in detail, but similar in general, began to appear only in the 19th century.
The 19-gun frigate of Her Majesty's fleet "Daedalus", which had returned from a long voyage, docked at the London shipyard. The captain of the frigate Peter McKahy arrived with a report to the Lords of the Admiralty and said that not far from the island of Java 4, the ship's crew * observed the appearance of a sea monster
The creature moved parallel to the ship's course within sight of about 20 minutes. The sailors saw a large (1.5 meters) "snake" head protruding above the sea surface. From the head along the back of the creature, there was a kind of horse's mane. The sailors determined the length of the monster at 20 meters.
The venerable lords considered the report of the experienced sea wolf to be another sailor's tale and put it under the rug. However, the story could not be kept secret, and it became a sensation, falling into the hands of the newspapers.
But in the United States, the sea serpent was a rather ordinary character. Beginning in 1817, according to eyewitnesses, for ten years, he appeared in the summer off the east coast. Leading snake expert Bernard Havelman has compiled a catalog of the monster's appearances over the past 150 years - in total, he described more than 500 cases. But undoubtedly, the studies of this phenomenon carried out in the second half of the past century are of greater interest.
The two Scots went by boat for mackerel. One of them was Tex Ged-des, who participated in several expeditions of the famous naturalist Gavin Maxwell. Later, Geddes, a chelorek not inclined to fiction, talked about an unusually successful sailing trip. The weather was calm, the sea was calm, and the mackerel pecked incessantly. Soon the fishermen saw a pair of killer whales, and then Tex's comrade James noticed a dark mass moving in their direction. “When we noticed that the object was approaching us,” Tex recalled later, “both stood up from the benches to look at it better. Hearing noisy breathing, I realized that we were dealing with some kind of animal. We were literally dumbfounded when we saw the prehistoric forms of an unknown creature. The head of the creature clearly belonged to a reptile and protruded from the water about a meter,and huge bulging eyes stared at us.
Instead of a nose, the head seemed to be divided in half by a red slit, and the labial folds were clearly visible. At the same time, we made out a part of the monster's back about three meters long. The head and back, resembling an earthworm, were covered with large scales, and the head seemed darker, and a huge plate ridge crowned the back. The creature seemed to breathe through its mouth as its mouth slowly opened and closed. For a moment, the monster turned its head towards us, and I saw its bloody mouth, but there seemed to be no teeth in it."
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These are just two of the many hundreds of descriptions of the mysterious sea creature that have filled the pages of newspapers and sensational newsletters around the world. Remarkable is the opinion that Arthur Clarke expressed about the snake, who more than once described the aforementioned character.
“Life began in the depths of the ocean, although some scientists question this hypothesis. Undoubtedly something else: it is in the ocean that the largest and most amazing representatives of the terrestrial fauna live. Therefore, it is in the ocean that we have the greatest chance of finding some large and unknown creature. And if the most technically advanced countries combine their scientific potential, the day will soon come when biologists will see something completely unthinkable on the sonars of nuclear submarines. Well, at least a sea serpent …”A. Clark. 1980
Valery KLITNY