Sea Serpents

Prior to these reports, I had read two other reports on this creature.  One was in Pacific waters by Vancouver Island and the other in storm tossed waters in the Atlantic during the nineteenth century.  Here we have two cases by excellent observers who had careers to mind and crews to confirm their observations.

These observations are rare.  As indicated, the best one occurred because the creature was caught napping, an impossibility with the advent of the engine.

As I have posted a lot on the subject it is worthwhile writing what we actually know.

1                    The creature is a sea snake that grows out to enormous size easily matching the largest in the Amazon or the Congo were even a hundred foot length is plausible.  Recent work has located creatures approaching half that.  These two reports give us lengths of 120 feet (plausible) and approaching 200 feet (possible).  These are enormous.

2                    They sport a crest like comb that serves as an external gill.  This allows them to reside primarily in the deep at their best operating temperature and to almost never surface.  That they come to surface at all is a surprise and very unusual.

3                    Their life cycle includes a trip(s) for the females back to their ancestral river in order to set a nest in a convenient swamp.  They use deep lakes as part of their spawning strategy.  Thus we have Loch Ness and many others were observations of the creature have been made.

4                    They quickly take fright at the presence of surface vessels and swiftly retreat.

5                    I expect that they operate in the true deep below the surface layer of warmer waters we are familiar with and well away from fishing gear and the like.

6                    The rarity of sightings is no indicator at all of actual population size.  The sheer size of the specimens observed suggests that the population could be large particularly if spawning populations use the Amazon and Congo rivers.

7                    They are also nocturnal in habit and these daytime observations are additionally unusual for all that.  They appear to have been basking when they were disturbed.

Apparently more reports are available and will be now forthcoming.  Perhaps all these records will find their way onto the internet as have the contents of the Vatican library and the records of the Spanish efforts in the New World.  They are surely worthy and a testament to good men often long forgotten who took their responsibilities seriously when confronted with the unusual

The Sea Serpent Files

Monsters of the Sea

By Nick Redfern     December 25, 2010

http://www.mania.com/lair-beasts-sea-serpent-files_article_127267.html

Located just outside of central London, England is a large and impressive building known as the National Archive. It serves as a repository for declassified and still-classified files from the British Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, Army and the British equivalents of the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and National Security Agency.

As might be expected, the bulk of the records that the British Government has released into the public domain via its Freedom of Information Act – and that are now available for scrutiny by the public - focus upon such matters as Cold War activities, espionage, the Second World War, and the routine, day-to-day work of governmental bodies.

As well as the strictly down-to-earth material, however, intriguing files have surfaced demonstrating that a whole variety of official bodies within the British Government have taken a deep and keen interest in tales of sea-serpents.

One of the most notable reports of an encounter with such a beast of truly monstrous proportions, and that attracted the keen attention of elements of the British Government, can be found within the official archives of the Admiralty. The documentation at issue details the remarkable encounter with a sea-serpent that was seen on May 9, 1830 by the crew of the Rob Roy: a British Royal Navy ship that was homeward bound after a lengthy sea-journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

As the ship sailed by the island of St. Helena, something remarkable occurred, as the Rob Roy’s captain, James Stockdale, recorded in his official log: “About five p.m. all at once while I was walking on the poop my attention was drawn to the water on the port bow by a scuffling noise. Likewise all the watch on deck were drawn to it.

“Judge my amazement when what should stare us all in the face as if not knowing whether to come over the deck or to go around the stern – but the great big sea snake! Now I have heard of the fellow before – and I have killed snakes twenty-four feet long in the straits of Malaca, but they would go in his mouth.

“I think he must have been asleep for we were going along very softly two knots an hour, and he seemed as much alarmed as we were – and all taken aback for about fifteen seconds. But he soon was underway and, when fairly off, his head was square with our topsail and his tail was square with the foremast.”

Captain Stockdale continued:

“My ship is 171 feet long overall – and the foremast is 42 feet from the stern which would make the monster about 129 feet long. If I had not seen it I could not have believed it but there was no mistake or doubt of its length – for the brute was so close I could even smell his nasty fishy smell.

“When underway he carried his head about six feet out of water – with a fin between the shoulders about two feet long. I think he was swimming about five miles an hour – for I watched him from the topsail yard till I lost sight of him in about fifty minutes. I hope never to see him more. It is enough to frighten the strong at heart.”

A second report of a sea-monster sighting has been declassified at an official level by the British Government and describes an extraordinary December 13, 1857 encounter that also occurred in the vicinity of the island of St. Helena. A statement prepared by Commander George Henry Harrington revealed the facts:

“While myself and officers were standing on the lee side of the poop – looking toward the island – we were startled by the sight of a huge marine animal which reared its head out of the water within twenty yards of the ship – when it suddenly disappeared for about half a minute and then made a reappearance in the same manner again – showing us its neck and head about ten or twenty feet out of the water.

“Its head was shaped like a long buoy – and I should suppose the diameter to have been seven or eight feet in the largest part with a kind of scroll or ruff encircling it about two feet from the top. The water was discolored for several hundred feet from the head, so much so that on its first appearance my impression was that the ship was in broken waters, produced, as I supposed, by some volcanic agency, since I passed the island before.”

And Captain Harrington had far more to impart: “But the second appearance completely dispelled those fears and assured us that it was a monster of extraordinary length and appeared to be moving slowly towards the land. The ship was going too fast to enable us to reach the masthead in time to form a correct estimate of this extreme length – but from what we saw from the deck we conclude that he must have been over two hundred feet long.

“The Boatswain and several of the crew, who observed it from the forecastle, state that it was more than double the length of the ship, in which case it must have been five hundred feet. Be that as it may – I am convinced that it belonged to the serpent tribe.”

How many further reports of sea-serpent-style animals the British military have on-file is, of course, a matter for another day and another article!

Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including Contactees, Science Fiction Secrets, and On the Trail of the Saucer Spies.