Lake & Sea Monsters

The vast majority of the earth's oceans and seas are unexplored.  Is it really hard to believe that there are creatures that live so far down or in such remote areas, that they are rarely, if ever, seen by humans. The waters of this planet go mostly unexplored.  It is very easy to hypothesize that we have not come close to cataloging all the creatures that dwell in these waters.   There has been many a sailor who has told stories of seeing strange creatures while on the high seas.  Are these just ramblings or are they actual eye witness accounts of creatures yet unknown to science.  The giant squid was thought of as a creature of myth and legend until recently, when scientist found corpses of just such a creature as recently as October 1997.  Many of these "sea serpents" descriptions a similar to creatures that are thought to be extinct. 

The coelacanth was thought to be extinct for 70 million years until it was discovered alive and well in 1938.  The fish is no longer on the extinct list.  If this fish could survive all those years undetected, why can't other prehistoric giants have done the same thing.  Every year unknown animals or animals that were thought extinct are discovered.  Because most of these animals don't fall into the "monster" category, there is very little written about them that a lay person would see.  New species of water creatures that were discovered recently include the Japanese beaked whale (1958), the cochito porpoise (1958), Megamouth Shark (1976), and Prudes Bay killer whale (1983).   Isn't it safe to assume that since creatures are discovered or rediscovered all the time, these sea serpents and lake monsters are just waiting their turn to be identified properly.

August 6, 1848, on board the Daedalus in the Atlantic Ocean, 7 men including the Captain reported seeing a creature about 60 ft long and 15 inches in diameter.  A mane of a soft looking material flowed down it's back.  The creature's body was a dark brown in color and it's throat area was a yellowish white.  The creature was swimming approximately 15 MPH with its head constantly above the water.  In modern times a creature matching this description has been seen off the coast of California by many reputable witnesses...

by Rebecca Driver

Tales of unknown creatures make sense in a biblical framework of history. Reports of unknown monsters of the deep have been a part of sea lore for hundreds of years, but very little attention has been paid to such tales until recent years. With more and improved scientific methods of investigation, there is growing evidence that they are more than just a product of early sailors’ imaginations, according to even some secular researchers.

Monsters in the Bible: More fascinating still is the apparent connection between fossils of prehistoric marine reptiles, and the monsters described in the pages of the Bible. ‘… leviathan, that wriggling, twisting dragon …’ is mentioned in the Old Testament four times. Leviathan is described in detail, in Job chapter 41, as a creature of immense strength. In the Hebrew text, he has ‘terrifying’ teeth and scales like rows of shields, closely fastened together and hard as stone. He is a resident of the sea, knowing no fear and apparently immune to all man’s weapons. Many scholars identify this animal as a crocodile, but as other experts have pointed out, there are several problems with this idea. Although some crocodiles do venture into the coastal areas and can swim out to sea, the deep ocean is not their normal habitat. They are found mainly in inland waters, where they live in lakes, rivers, swamps and estuaries, and breed on the shores. Therefore they would not be described as great beasts of the sea (Psalm 104:25–26). Nor are crocodiles so terrifying that no one dares tackle them—crocodiles are regularly trapped and killed by native tribes with simple technology.

Submarine report: A number of ‘sea serpent’ reports describe a large marine animal resembling a crocodile but much larger—15–18 metres (50–60 feet) long—and occurring far out at sea. For example, one sighting of such a creature occurred in the North Atlantic during World War I with the sinking of the British steamer Iberian by the German U-boat U28. Some seconds after the Iberian had been torpedoed and sunk, there was an underwater explosion. The submarine commander and some of his officers reported: ‘A little later pieces of wreckage, and among them a gigantic sea-animal, writhing and struggling wildly, were shot out of the water to a height of 60 to 100 feet [18 to 30 metres] …‘We did not have the time to take a photograph, for the animal sank out of sight after 10 or 15 seconds...

Copyright © Polenth Blake 1997-2007

Sea serpents and sea dragons have been reported by ships for a long time. They are obviously not that different to the dragons of mythology... it is simply that most of these do not have myths attached to them. The story comes from the retelling of the sighting. Some of the sightings remain mysterious and are possibly candidates for undiscovered species. Others seem more likely to be something more mundane. Faced with a topic like this, it is important not to be too quick to decide that all sightings must be true or that all sightings are explained by other things. Each case should be taken on its own merits.

Daedalus:  In August 1848, the HMS Daedalus was heading back to England from India. Whilst passing by the coast of Namibia, the ship encountered a sea serpent. Captain M'Quhae described the serpent as about 60 feet long. It was floating on the water, with its head held above the water. They could not see how it was moving as it was keeping its body still. Presumably there was some other part under the water propelling it. It was said to have a serpent's head, some sort of mane on its back and to be brown in colouration (with yellow-white around the throat).The sighting caused some controversy. Experts tried to come up with alternative theories for the sighting, rather than accepting it could be true. Examples of suggestions were it was a seal (the size was an error) or part of a ship being pulled by a harpooned whale or shark under the water. Neither seemed to be a mistake a seasoned (and sober) sea captain would be likely to make, though it is always possible.

Hydrarchos: In 1845 Albert C. Koch unveiled a complete sea serpent fossil skeleton, which he called Hydrarchos harlani. It was alleged that it had been recovered in Alabama. The bones were put on display for the public with a great deal of publicity. Koch certainly knew how to get the viewers in for his finds. It was soon discovered to be a fraud. Koch has constructed the creature from five fossil whale skeletons. Charles Lyell (1849) wrote about how the fraud had been worked out: ...

When the first Euro-American settlers came to the Great Basin in 1847, the Ute Indians told them stories of Pawapicts or Water Babies. These supernatural beings lured their human victims under the water, where they, too, became Pawapicts. The new colonists modified these Ute tales, and the Pawapicts became creatures the Euro-Americans had heard of in the Old Country -- kraken or sea monsters.Very little public comment on these sea monsters surfaced until 1868, when Joseph C. Rich, a northern Utah correspondent to the Deseret News, wrote his now famous column entitled, "Monsters in Bear Lake." In this column, Rich asserted that agroup of men and women saw a cluster of brownish-colored animals rapidly swimming through the lake's blue waters.Toward the end of his letter, Rich suggested that some enterprising soul could likely become rich by catching one of these strange animals and selling it to famous circus magnate and king of the freak show circuit, P.T.

Barnum. Some very important people in Utah Territory cut to the chase -- including the leader of the LDS Church and former governor of Utah Territory, Brigham Young. President Young read accounts of the Bear Lake monster in the Deseret News, and he received several "monster letters" from a number of the faithful in northern Utah and southern Idaho. A May 18, 1874, letter from William Budge, who lived in Paris, Idaho, told of a monster sighting on Bear Lake. Budge, WilliamBroomhead, and Molando Pratt were returning from general conference in Salt Lake City when they spotted the monster about three miles from Lake Town. Budge reported that it swam in the lake about 100 yards ahead of the party and 20 yards from shore. At first the men thought the creature in the lake might be a very large duck, but as they drove closer, the men could tell the creature was an animal they judged to be about five or six feet long. The animal dived underwater and came up about 100 feet from the three men, giving them a good look at its strange countenance as it swam through the still water about as fast as a man could walk. Pratt's description read: "It's face and part of it's head was distinctly seen, covered with fur, or short hair of a light snuff color. The face of the animal was apparently flat, very wide between the yes, andt......