Sea monsters
In the infamous Bermuda Triangle, a steel trap with special bait has been set on the ocean floor. When he was taken aboard an oceanographic vessel, they saw … crumpled metal! But in the sharp claws of the ingenious trap, there were pieces of living tissue - skin and muscles.
As the examination showed, the trap made of alloy steel was knocked out by an eight-armed monster whose weight could be several tons! But the herald of the "legends of the Bermuda Triangle" Charles Berlitz attributes some of the catastrophes of this place to the unknown sea monsters. Berlitz relies on the testimony of eyewitnesses who observed various sea monsters from ships, and on divers. One of whom seemed to see a completely incredible creature. It happened off one of the islands of the Bahamas archipelago. A 10-meter boat, designed for underwater and rescue operations, was slowly towing the diver on a cable. He "hovered" at a distance of about ten meters above the bottom. Suddenly he noticed something rounded like a turtle. The diver sank down and was amazed to see a creature with the face of … a monkey! At that time, it was serpentine bending its neck. His eyes were vaguely human-like, but much larger. Glancing at the diver, the incredible creature calmly left …
Writer Yaroslav Golovanov told about an equally incredible plot in his book "A Drop of Our World". This happened in 1913 off the Florida Keys - where the border of the notorious Bermuda Triangle originates. The captain of the yacht "Samba" Charles Thompson saw a huge animal that was swimming near the surface of the water. The captain gave the order to lower the boat and, armed with a harpoon, entered into battle with the sea monster. Mad with pain, with a harpoon sticking in its side, the monster rushed forward. A lifeboat flew behind him on a rope tied to a harpoon. Thompson, of course, could have cut the rope, but he felt sorry for the loss of rare prey. The race lasted for several hours. In the end, the deed was done. Having finished off the "monster" with shots from guns, people saw in front of them a 14-meter fish of an absolutely incomprehensible look. Scientists have never been able to classify it. Interestingly, to this day, no one met with her again.
It is believed that we know about half of the living inhabitants of the ocean, and even then they are shallow and slow-moving. And who is found in the so-called abyssal depths, going down two kilometers or more? There is practically no person at all. This is why deep diving is always full of surprises.
Deep-sea research apparatus "Highfish", created in Germany, relatively recently almost died because of such a "surprise". After one of the dives in the Mariana Trench to a depth of about 7 km, the Highfish could not surface for some unknown reason. To see what was holding it, the hydronauts turned on a thermal imager, that is, a camera that shoots in infrared rays, and were literally dumbfounded: a monster that looked like a fossil lizard seized the body. It is good that the creators of the device provided for the possibility of such a situation. The hydronauts fired up their electric cannon, and the beast, stunned by the electric shock, unclenched its eerie jaws.
The story keeps the legend of Alexander the Great diving into the depths of the sea in a glass barrel. And there he allegedly saw such a huge monster that sailed past the royal explorer "for three days and three nights." We will not go into the assessment of the veracity of such a legend, we will note its far from unique character. Ancient texts mention the observation of a giant sea serpent by the Assyrian king Sargan II. And in 244 BC. e. Roman legionnaires were attacked by a terrible monster in the delta of the Medjerda River in present-day Tunisia. Only after using the catapult was it possible to deal with it. By order of the consul, the monster was skinned and sent to Rome. The trophy displayed for public viewing was 20 paces long.
One Chinese manuscript from the 12th century provides evidence of the existence of an unknown dragon. The author of this ancient manuscript allegedly "saw his skeleton in the court pantry, and his tail, fins, limbs and body were completely intact, except for the cut off horns." As the text says, the skeleton "looked exactly like the existing images of dragons."
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It's strange that as our time approaches, this kind of evidence becomes less and less, but the number of chilling stories about ocean monsters multiplies more and more.
1861, November 30 - the warship Adekton (France) met in the Atlantic Ocean with a giant squid (kraken) with tentacles up to 20 meters in size. On the red torso of the animal, huge eyes gleamed ominously. The vessel opened fire on the monster from cannons, but due to the strong rolling it did not hit it. Then, coming close to him, he was struck by harpoons. But the mollusk somehow got away from the ship and disappeared into the depths. The sailors were also lucky: the artist on board was able to make a color drawing, which is now kept in the French Academy of Sciences.
A terrible incident took place at the end of the 19th century. This is what was published in the English newspaper The Times. A huge octopus attacked the Indian schooner Pearl. From a ship passing nearby, they saw through binoculars how a huge heavy mass "crawled onto the ship, enveloping it and merging with it." The schooner masts swayed and began to lean towards the water. As the octopus climbed aboard, the masts sank lower and lower. And finally they fell completely.
The captain of the schooner who escaped by a miracle said that when he saw the monster, he grabbed a gun and shot at it. The enraged monster immediately climbed on its offender. The team rushed for axes and prepared to repel the attack. Suddenly there was a powerful blow. The ship shook. In the next instant, huge tentacles, like trees, grabbed the body! They snaked towards the masts and clung to them. People were frantically swinging their axes, trying to hit these tentacles. But the fear of being captured by themselves prevented them from reaching their goal. Meanwhile, the monster threw its huge body over the side, pulling up to the tops of the masts. Hanging at their ends, it fell into the water, dragging the boat along with it. People instantly found themselves in the water. The vessel lay for some time upside down, then sank to the bottom. Apparently, believing that the enemies are finished,the monster left the sailors alone.
The problem of giant sea monsters interested the remarkable writer and prominent scientist - paleontologist I. A. Efremov. In one of the publications, he talked about a researcher who observed a close relative of Nessie in Lake Victoria in Africa. The researcher saw a monster suddenly rise out of the water to grab a gape native. The beast had a long, strong neck, a small head and a massive body that did not prevent it from moving quickly. It is curious that already in our time there are evidences confirming the message of Efremov.
For more than two hundred years, the pygmies of Central Africa have a belief about the terrible beast "mokele-mbembe", which means "the one who eats the tops of the palm trees." Eyewitnesses describe him as a "half-elephant-half-dragon". Zambia is also said to be home to some kind of dinosaur-like monster. Locals call it "chipque" - "eater of hippos". The chipquewe has the head and neck of a huge raptor. So there would have been meetings with these monsters in folklore if the famous hunter J. A. Jordan hadn’t met the chipquewe once. An "incredible creature" suddenly appeared before the hunter. His head was like that of a crocodile, and his body was like that of a hippopotamus, moreover covered with bone plaques. Jordan managed to fire the charge prepared for the elephant. Dodging from the shot to the side, the chipqueque (if that was it!) Disappeared into the swamp thickets.
One can, of course, doubt the hunter's testimony, although there were guides with him who confirmed his story. But in the summer of 1983, a new message went around the world press, overlapping all previous ones in convincingness. Marcellin Anyhana, head of the Congolese scientific expedition, was completing his survey of Lake Tele. Suddenly he heard the shout of the guide: “Hurry here! Grab a movie camera! " The picture presented to Marcellin Anynier literally shocked him. At a distance of 300 meters from the coast above the water surface, a snake head proudly towered on a massive neck! The monster behaved as if inviting people to admire themselves. Anyanya woke up from shock and turned on the movie camera, mentally conjuring the monster to stay longer. And a fantastic case: it "posed" for the operator for 10 minutes! And only after that, with a slight splash, it sank under the water. According to Dr. Anyanyi, “the visible part of this animal roughly corresponds to our idea of the fossil brontosaurus - giant herbivores that became extinct about 70 million years ago.
But this kind of meeting does not always end well for the monsters.
In the archives of the German Navy, there is a report from the commander of the submarine 11-28, which torpedoed the English steamer Iberia in 1915 off the coast of Ireland. After the explosion of the torpedo that hit the ship, a dying monster literally flew out of the water in the form of a huge crocodile with a long tail and two pairs of powerful paws with membranes.
1917 - in the North Sea, the British cruiser Hillary met with a mysterious and scary creature … At 9.00 am the officer on duty drew the commander's attention to a moving animal of an unusual appearance. The cruiser commander considered the curiosity a good target for shooting practice and ordered the shells to be prepared. The head of that target, according to the Hillary commander, resembled the head of a huge cow. She was black with a white mark on her forehead, but no horns or ears. The neck stretched no less than six meters, and the fin towered over a meter above the water. The total length of the animal was approximately 20 meters. When it lifted its head to look around, the body curved in a semicircle. Shooting began, and one of the few fossils that have survived to this day has become smaller.
1977, July - the world's telegraphic agencies spread sensational news. The Japanese fishing trawler "Zuyomaru", fishing off the coast of New Zealand, pulled out a dark mass with a trawl, resembling a huge lizard in outline. Her remains gave off an intolerable stench. Still, the fishermen lifted them to the deck with a crane. The captain, fearing any infection, gave the order to throw the "lizard" overboard. But the sailors managed to photograph him and make sketches. The length of the find was estimated at approximately 10 meters, width - 1.5 meters and weight - 2 tons. The head was small and the tail was large.
The director of the Japanese program of zoological research, Professor I. Imaizumi, commented on the strange find: "This is a reptile, and the drawings give great reason to believe that the fishermen from the Zuyomaru raised a plesiosaur!" The Soviet academician N. A. Shilo wrote that by throwing the find into the sea, the Japanese fishermen "deprived mankind of the opportunity to study a unique specimen of the animal, which is believed to have become extinct 100 million years ago."
Exactly a year later, in the spring of 1978, now Soviet fishermen saw such creatures alive in the sea. In the Indian Ocean, they met a whole flock of "plesiosaurs". From a distance of fifty meters, they observed, in particular, how the head of an unknown animal with an open toothy mouth appeared on the crest of a wave. A. Kuzmin, Candidate of Biological Sciences, reported the following details: “A steep, rounded nape rose from the water by about one and a half meters. On the upper jaw there was a white stripe bordered by a black line below … In profile, the head had a conical shape. Its total length is 1.5-2 meters. Black stripes went down from the upper jaw - probably interdental spaces. " After the publication of this incident, it was found out that other ships met here with similar animals. The greatest impression on the eyewitnesses was made by the folds on the animal's neck and huge eyes."
But readers have the right to ask the question, why are there no mysterious monsters on the territory of our country, in its seas, rivers and lakes? I would answer this question like this, but who told you that they do not meet? To my great regret, few people read the diaries of the geologist Viktor Aleksandrovich Tverdokhlebov. They tell about the observations at the headwaters of the Indigirka River of "relatives" of the Loch Ness monster. One of the legends about the Labynkyr Lake describes the "devil" living in it.
The distance between his eyes is wider than a "ten-log fishing raft." One day, a huge mouth appeared from the water, and the dog, swimming after the shot duck, immediately disappeared. It is believed that the "devil" swallowed her. Local residents found a bone on the shore of the lake, similar to the jaw of such a mouth. According to them, if it were placed vertically, then under it, as under an arch, a rider on horseback could ride. The famous enthusiast of the problem of the "Bigfoot" professor BF Porshnev saw the living “devil” of Lake Labynkyr. Something similar was observed in the neighboring Lake Gate. There was an object on the lake, gleaming in the rays of the sun. The main thing is that he was swimming, and at the same time quite fast! “A dark gray oval carcass rose slightly above the water, wrote Tverdokhlebov in his diary. Two light spots, similar to eyes, were clearly visible on it …
We saw a small part of the animal, but a huge massive body was guessed below. This could be judged by his movement. With a heavy throw, slightly rising out of the water, it rushed forward, and then completely immersed in the water. At the same time, waves were coming from his head, born somewhere under the water. Slapping his mouth, catching fish - a guess flashed. The creature was approaching the geologists, the waves raised by it reached the people. And they broke down and rushed up the steep slope. The animal stopped and then disappeared under the water.
Another monster was seen in the waters of the tundra Lake Khayyr, also in Yakutia, beyond the Arctic Circle. After Komsomolskaya Pravda reported this, several expeditions of scientists visited it. It can be said that NF Gladkikh, a member of the biological detachment of the Yakutsk branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was lucky.
A young man, having come early in the morning to the lake for water, saw an incredible phenomenon: an object, so to speak, of an expeditionary search was lying on the shore. Gladkikh saw "a small head on a long, sleek neck, a huge body with bluish-black skin and a vertically protruding dorsal fin." The stunned biologist rushed to call his comrades, but when they came running, they saw nothing.
“But suddenly a head appeared in the middle of the lake, followed by a fin on its back,” wrote Rukosuev, deputy head of the North-Eastern Expedition of Moscow State University. “The creature hit the water with its long tail, causing waves to spread across the lake.” This time, not one, but several people witnessed it.