Ivan's Sea Serpents' Notebook: Summary & Remarks.

Well....this turned out to be more of a project than I'd intended for some mild bloggish amusement. In the end, it's not much more than that qualitatively anyway, as all we were really doing was having some fun with an Old Master's information pile. Although we waded through 115 cases, our actual data was pretty thin, case-to-case, but maybe there are a few tentative things that we can say anyway.

Because we were sorting through an idiosyncratic notebook collected by a researcher in an unplanned [i.e. non-systematic] way, we shouldn't over-rate any "trend" or "pattern" we think we see. HUGE numbers of sea monster cases aren't in here. [like the one pictured above]. And massive amounts of "cultural filtering" of just what sorts of cases came to Ivan was occurring. But, what-the heck, we've gone through a bunch of claims so let's be a little foolish about them.

The obvious thing that I've been doing all through our adventure is roughly mapping the case locations. The final map is alongside. What it shows to me is the overwhelming "coverage" by Ivan's notebook of three English-speaking areas of the planet [PNW coast; New England; and Northern Britain]. The easiest thing in the world would be to write this off as merely the result of where the media sources were published that Ivan and friends were reading. And maybe that's all there is to that.

I'd suggest, however two further things: 1). The map shows a heckuva lot of activity in three areas, which sounds like more than "smoke" to me; and 2). MAYBE the location of these three areas in somewhat similar oceanic environmental conditions is significant. Of course, both of these suggestions could point to the alternative hypothesis of "Real Entities? Yes; but anomalous critters? No."... that is: people are seeing actual big lifeforms, but misidentifying whales, sea lions, basking sharks et al. "There be Whales there" in all three locales.

As a possible addendum: there could well be another area of concentration around the Cape of Africa if we had more media input. Antarctic whaling waters would be another target for the interesting-but-not-anomalous hypothesis. I, through all that, continue to be impressed by several of the witness claims, however, and do not believe that the Mundane Hypothesis handles them.

Since it was pretty easy to do, and one of the few things that you CAN do with rough data like this, I plotted the years of occurrence. It's decadal --- all ten years of a decade lumped into one number. Only five cases were so vague on this that I couldn't count them, so the graph at left has c.110 cases.

Unsurprisingly, Ivan's book reflects when he was collecting the news, and when it was that there was a lot of media to collect. Thus the mountain rising in the 40s, 50s, 60s. If he had lived longer, it would have been interesting to see if the claims of encounters would have remained high. To find that out we would have to ask a current encyclopedic collector of reports like Gary Mangiacopra, who would know. I see only a couple of things in the graph. The most obvious thing is that the rising mountain owes a lot to Caddy [the cases marked in red]. Caddy apparently exploded into media consciousness in the 50s after some tentative hints earlier. The other "next" thing is the "New England Serpent's" [cases marked blue] dramatic origins in the early 1800s PLUS the fact that it is still lurking about all the way through. Spikes like the one in the 1900s are always intriguing, but our numbers count should warn us not to get too excited.

And lastly as far as graphing is concerned: More than half the cases were of things specifically called "sea serpents" by the witnesses or pretty clearly described in serpentine fashion. Another tenth of the cases were of things of a stubbier or neck plus bulbous body type of thing, which could be interpreted not as a serpentine beast but more of a plesiosaur body plan. These two categories account for almost exactly two-thirds of the reports.

One sixth of the reports are of carcasses/remains. These are pretty uniformly uninteresting to me, but perhaps fascinate others. The last sixth are "everything else", from the Giant Squid to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I like several of these cases but they are mainly "stand-alones".

Can we say anything at all as to the deeper mysteries embodied here? Perhaps we should not. That at least would be the safe "scientific" thing to do. But, hey, it's only a blog---just be careful where you put your feet.

I marvel a bit that the notebook didn't contain more variety, nor more cases of things like squid or octopi. Ivan certainly wasn't rejecting such things in any obvious way. But, ONE Squid and NO Giant Octopus in 115 cases....surprising to me. Methinks that if they exist, tis not in Nessieland, Caddyland, nor Boston. AND, here we go into Out Proctor, on the basis of just the one Giant Squid case, I find myself a fan of there being such critters really lurking about.

Several of the serpent stories are very impressive to me as solid witness testimony --- BUT, I'm not sure about where to go with my guess as to what they represent. A blogger "out there" [might have even been Karl Shuker, whom I respect a great deal] said what is in my mind: although the evidence from beached remains etc consistently disappoints, there is a lot of witness testimony which is quite impressive. THAT is the seeming "fact" in all of this which continues to stick in my mind. We have good testimony to a reality which is seeable, hearable, smellable, and affects the watery environment with physical force, BUT we can never catch it nor hold any of it for the lab. And you folks know what that sort of thing sounds like to me.

It takes a long time reading and working in the fields of anomalies to get to the point where one is willing to entertain the possibility that in some instances we are dealing with things which are not materialistically reducible. I have spent that time. Each anomalistic situation that I read about I go into with a wide-open set of possible endpoints.

People of a cynical nature won't believe a person who is sympathetic to the anomalous fields of study when they are told that the researcher goes into cases looking hard for the Mundane Solution. But for any true explorer that is the only way to be. A true explorer wants to find Truth, not amusement and self-created fantasy. Sloppily BSing around in cases pollutes the databank and the path to Truth is lost. I look for the mundane first. That is why I am not at all impressed with the carcasses. LOTS of the other cases look like excited "wannabees". You have to toss them in the gray basket. Any case which is wildly unique [the creature from the lagoon is; giant squid are not, when you bring in other things you know], must be placed in the gray basket until more come along.

But we have an absolute PILE of Sea Serpents. AND they are anchored by some pretty good testimony. They ARE, it seems; but WHAT are they? Feeling pushed into a corner by a sufficiency of evidence at one level, and essentially none at all on another, I am left with a [I hope] healthy openness but a preferred hypothesis of the folkloric entities of yore.

Outrageous, I suppose. But my files, begun several years ago in pursuit of better understanding of the types of entity encounters had by us humans, have reached several hundreds of encounter [not folktale stories] incidents of the "Good Folk", "Little People", Denizens of Faerie. The similarity of these encounters between whatever-they-are and both Celtic peoples and Native American peoples astounds me. And right alongside them them are the Water Monsters.

I can't claim much for this hypothesis. I'm walking a path with it right now. We'll see where it leads. Whenever I get back to the blog, I may have more to say, or perhaps still be as stone-ignorant as I am today. God Bless and Peace. Somewhere in that sentiment is where I suspect this answer lies. Panic not; I don't believe that it's demons. If anything almost the opposite....

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part Ten & Last.

We've finally reached the last page of Ivan's Individual Reports notebook. I could have split this up into two, but I suspect that we're all ready to come to completion on this little project. After I get these last thumbnails of reports down here, I'll take one fling at the bulk of this crude data in a final summary [next time].

Here we go one last time:

Case#102: Foul Bay, BC, "1970". A giant snake was observed, 20' long. Its head was shaped like a cobra's, and was held about a foot out of the water while swimming. It had "fins" on its back.

#103: Cadboro Bay, BC, 1969. Several witnesses observe Caddy from a distance of only 20 feet. No description given.

#104: Santa Cruz, CA, 1924. Carcass. {seems like I did this one before, but OH Well}. 20-25' long. Small seal-like head. Long neck. Bulbous body and flippers. Long stubbly tail. Carcass was roped off and people were selling tickets.

The drawing and pamphlet on the left don't constitute a new entry, but the pamphlet was "new" enough that I thought that I'd slip it in here. As you can read, it speaks of the Gloucester Harbor, MA, 1817 "Lonso Nash" case. The serpent is described as 80-90' long with a dark-colored body the diameter of a "half barrel". It had 8 bunches or humps on its back, and swam at 12-14 mph. Its tongue was shaped like a harpoon and was two foot long. It did not dive, but submerged by "sinking".

#105: West coast of Vancouver Island, BC, 1954. A 40' long "sea monster". It had a horse-like head with large lips. Dark brown body with one hump. Swam by undulating. More than 30 witnesses.

#106: Feather Banks in the Florida Keys, "1930s". Rather vague report which nevertheless intrigued Sanderson. Apparently this thing was only about 6-7" long but swam right by and under witness' boat in clear water. It had a very small head connected by a long neck to a smooth body. It was reddish brown colored. It sounded like the witness was trying to tell Ivan that he saw a miniature sea monster, and Ivan was a bit exasperated that he wasn't clearer about what he saw.

#107: Oregon coast, 1915. "Carcass" [Hide]. A hide washed unto shore. It covered an area about 25'd. It was three feet thick at its center and the skin was 1 3/4" thick. It had gray-colored hair about 3 1/2" long and scattered sparsely. The "tail" was 10" long and hairy. Three bones were still attached associated with a large [14"d] ball joint. The longest bone was 4'. This "hide" was estimated to weigh 4 tons.

#108: Charlotte Harbor, FL, 1963. The illustration at the left shows a part of this carcass. The skull was 2 1/2' wide with "tennis ball-sized" eyes [I suppose they might have meant the size of the eye sockets here]. Had spiked teeth, gills, nostrils like blow-holes, flippers, and dime-sized scales covering the body. Its ribcage was about like a cow's. Article claimed that a marine biologist could not identify it.

#109: Western tip of Sicily, 1968. Carcass. [we had a lot of these in this first half, but this is the last one]. Witnesses observed bones sticking out of the sand. {i.e. no one knows how long the thing had been buried there}. The animal was more than 23' long. It had 33 vertebrae, and a flat "duck-shaped" head. Another case where the local scientist couldn't identify it.

#110: Hong Kong, China, 1969. Pretty hard to easily swallow this one. A bunch of teenagers were partying on the beach when one of the girls started screaming about a monster. She and one boy were alerted to look in that direction by a "crying" sound. The thing that was making the sound was slowly coming ashore in their direction. It was 20-30' long, all black body, and a big head. The worst part of it were those "Green Eyes". The hysterical teenagers began to run, and were relieved to see the thing shuffle back into the water.

#111: Bradda Head, Isle of Man, 1937.

Now this is the kind of case that I like. It comes to Ivan, not as a newspaper clipping, but as a personal letter. [illustration at the left]. It is simple, straight-forward. And its description is buttressed by a neat sketch done by the observer. All this needs to elevate it to the status of a good UFO-style case is a researcher interview and investigation. But this we don't often have in sea monster data, so I'll gratefully take this.

As you can read, the witness had a clear but brief view of the total animal, and it was shaped like a plesiosaur. Others might wish for more, but this one rings very real to me.

#112: Aleutian Islands, 1969. An elongated animal with an undulating swimming motion. A head like a dog's with whiskers and close-set eyes. Long red-yellow [amber?] colored hair. No length was given. Witness swears was not a pinniped.

#113: North of Nova Scotia, 1956. A 45' long white-spotted sea turtle with 15' long flippers plowing through the sea. [one wonders if the witnesses had seen hump-backed whales before].

#114: Howe Sound, Georgian Straits, BC, "1960s." Witnesses on shore see two creatures coming parallel to shoreline. Both heads out of water 5'. Camel-shaped heads 20' long. Gulls flocking around at height. Brownish-yellow body with 14"d necks. Water consistently disturbed 30' behind, leaving witnesses to guess at body length of such dimension. One animal dove and came up with large octopus in mouth, which it ate gulpingly like a dog. Scraps flew about, which the gulls raced for. Other animal stood patiently by, then both swam off together, stopping again further up coast.

That's the last of the notebook's cases. One thing however remains.

We saw a couple of posts back that there was a claim that in Barnstable Harbor, MA [it turns out in 1963], there were several fishermen who saw a sea serpent, and the one who had taken his movie camera in hopes of filming some whales took some film [about which we got no info]. Well, here at the very end of the notebook, one of Ivan's friends wrote him to say that he had tracked the guy down, and he was quite friendly and showed him the film. It was about 5 minutes of shooting and pretty bad workmanship, but good enough in the eyes of Ivan's friend. The long snake-like body was clearly distinguishable, though never above water all at once, and the blowhole was clearly seen in action. He said that most striking were the amber-colered tufts of hair running down the back of the head. He said that the thing looked like one animal and suggested that the film should be seriously looked at [and that the owner was willing]. He made a drawing of what he saw during the showing, and I've included that above.

This might be, at face value anyway, the most remarkable thing in this whole notebook. There seems no question that such a film existed and that the owner was willing to have it looked at under the right circumstances. It seems obvious that the content of the film was at least interesting upon casual viewing. Did anything ever happen? Have we got some cryptozoological Holy Grail sitting out there somewhere unanalyzed?? Hard to believe......

Below, Im leave you with my own version of the Mystery of Barnstable Harbor. [a bit redder haired than optimal, due to the vagaries of my scanner].... well, in cryptozoology, you can't have everything.

I'll put up the final map, and try some summary comments next time. Blessings till then.

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part eight. Addendum.

Markus has sent us the internet site for an explanation of the Deepholm carcass as mentioned in Ivan's last set. [go to the comments on the last blog post if you want to go to the orkneycommunity site yourself; there are a few more follow-up comments there]. He is obviously an expert researcher on such things. I have provided his photo below, as well as the comment about the case from the expert researcher at orkneycommunityimages site. Hopefully they will not mind sharing the information with you.

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part eight.

Cases #s 75-84 from the "Individual reports" notebook. A few of these are interesting, but none will probably send us to the National Academy of Sciences. As my father would say about our task, "We are in the short rows, now".

Case#75: near Hong Kong, China, 1901 or 1902. This case came to Ivan from the letter shown in part on the left. Witnesses saw a "heap" or "pile" on the sea. As they neared a head raised out of the mass, the body uncoiled, and a serpentine-shaped thing dived and swam under their boat. Green oval markings were seen on the body. Supposedly several pictures were taken.

#76: near Acosta, WA [Gray's Harbor], circa 1900. Shore witness walking over a bridge saw a head raise up over the height of the railing. Head was "ugly", not large, and mainly eyes and mouth. The neck was smooth and several feet long. The body smelled foully, and was "fat" with a short tail and flippers. It was flapping about in a shallow swampy area over which the bridge passed.

#77: Gulf Stream near shore in Fort Lauderdale, FL area, 1920. Several witnesses watched long-bodied animal with head "some distance ahead of the body" swim past. It had dorsal fins on body.

#78: Deepdale Holm, Orkney Islands, 1942. Carcass. Animal about 22' long. Head shaped like cow's head on an extremely long neck. Body covered with scales and three humps on back. Allegedly photos were taken.

#79: Cadboro Bay, Victoria, BC, 1969. Many witnesses watched as unidentified sea creature swam about for over an hour. Picture at left [yeh, I know, it's lousy] commemorates the sighting.

#80: Cadboro Bay, Victoria, BC, no date [mid-1950s?]. Witnesses in boat saw smallish sea monster surface near boat. Neck and head held two feet out of water as it swam. When back of body rose in swimming motion, it broke surface with about 3-4' exposed. Did this surfacing and diving three times as it quickly swam away. Brown-colored curved back. Witnesses said "definitely not a seal".

#81; Lima, Peru, 1973. Carcass. Animal 12' long with head like an elephant. Giant fins. No tail. No teeth. Thick "jelly-like" skin.

#82: New River Inlet, FL, 1885. Carcass. A long-bodied animal measuring 42' despite missing its head. Its neck was long and relatively thin with a body "broadening to a considerable girth", and then narrowing to a thin, long tail. It had a single pair of flippers towards the front. [This feature clues you to search for solutions within the cetacean class of animals, or if shorter the manatees].

#83: Nahant, MA, 1819. This case was stated as being similar to the famous Cape Ann, MA sea serpent of two years previous. It was 60' long, chocolate brown, and having the appearance of several humps along its back as it swam. There was speculation that these humps might be the result of the creature's flexible body "bunching up" during its swimming technique, rather than being a permanent structure. There were several hundred witnesses.

#84: Thetis Lake, Victoria, BC, 1972. Well, this is what we've really been hoping for: a real life Creature-From-The-Black-Lagoon. It was a silvery-colored beast built on a humanoid body plan. Scaly all over. Pointy things sticking out of its head. Very large ears. And a face to stop clocks with. [I've colored in the background of the newsclip artistic rendering to make our monster stand out a bit ... I tried to stay within the lines ... something that this story doesn't accomplish]. Two boys reported this, after two other teenagers had reported their own encounter days earlier. The RCMP came out to investigate. Whether they scared off the monster or the teenagers is not reported.

Here's our map. It's not changed much since the first set. Does it mean that sea monsters favor English-speaking people? Or does it mean that English-speaking people are crazier than most? I prefer to think that it's because "english" reports get into a notebook of an English-speaking guy who knows mainly English-speaking people. The monsters, if they are out there, probably speak elfintalk or dragon, if anything.

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part seven.

Off we go on cases #65-74, I think. Although initially looking like all the other clips we've been going through, these were sadly bereft of details for the most part. So, this is not exactly our best SITUational haul here. But that's life in this business, and we'll log the shallow things, too.

Case#65: Georges Bank, Newfoundland, 1826. This case actually could be a great one "if". The "if" is because there was the claim that there were many witnesses on board this passenger ship, many testimonials were taken, AND a drawing was made. None of that came with the story, unfortunately. All that was said was that a "sea serpent" was seen and that 60' of its length could be observed out of the water [ therefore intimating that the thing was longer].

#66: Machrihanish, Scotland, 1944. Another carcass, and none too impressive. >20' long with enormous eyes. Feet unlike a seal's or anything like a whale. Speculated to have been killed by War maneuvers.

#67: Brockton, MA, 1964. A "sea monster" was seen having a raised head and humps on its back.

#68: Alexandra Bay, Newfoundland, 1860s. A man was sailing to his home, saw a "sea serpent" and got so scared that he turned back.

#69: Eastern coast between NYC and Portland, ME, 1912 or 1913. An animal with a huge eel-like body, raised its head 20' out of water, and turned slowly as if surveying the surroundings. The neck had a diameter similar to a barrel.

#70: Seal Rock, OR, probably early 1940s. Carcass. Eighteen feet long. Eight foot long neck. Small head. Four flippers. Short light-brown hair.

#71: Sunset Beach, north of Vancouver, BC, 1937. Fishermen had very "close encounter" [25' away]. Had a large head shaped like a long-nosed pig, but wider built. Huge body and two large flippers seen. Later in day, others claimed to see [at greater distance] a "sea serpent" with a body 50-60' long and a head like a camel's. Diameter of body said to be "barrel-sized". At other times others claimed to have seen a "sea serpent" about 100' long.

#72: South Pacific [position undisclosed], 1852. A whaling vessel encountered something that captain and crew did not recognize as being any sort of whale. It was black, serpentine and moved with a snake-like motion. After some debate, they decided to chase the thing as they would a whale, harpooning it and killing it. It was 103' long. with a 6' diameter neck, widening to 8' at "shoulders". The body was about 16' at its broadest. The tail diminished to a point. The head was flat-topped and elongated. Its tongue was tipped with a "heart-shape". It had 94 teeth. Two spout holes, and four webbed paws. The back was black, the sides brown, and the belly yellow. They dismembered the thing as they would a Whale, but decided not to try to bring any of the bulk of it home. [I believe that some accident also occurred which flushed the evidence]. Oh well, such is Cryptozoology.

#73: New Bedford, MA, 1964. An animal 50' long was seen just 50-100' off starboard. Water was "Flat and calm as a mill pond". The head was shaped alligator-ish, with lumps all along its midline, like camel humps. Head was also huge, about 20' long. The thing had a blow-hole, but was without a discernible neck. Body was dark but with white spotting. Its tail was like a lobster's and it flapped it upon the water. It paralleled the boat for some time and seemed "friendly". [Hey boys, come on in; the water's fine...].

#74: New Bedford, MA, 1957. A creature with a very large body [of which 40' could be seen out of the water], was estimated at weighing 35-40 tons. It had a seal-like shaped body but a long neck which held its head 26' out of the water. The head was "alligator-ish". It sported a mane of bristly hair.

That's it for this bunch. There are several more notebook pages but the repetition is getting thick. We may make 100 yet. Till next time....

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part five.

Back again and into the murky Deep. By the way, and this is of probably no relevance to anyone but just in case, It has dawned on me that I was using twelve cases instead of the digitally-conventional ten for the first two segments of this cataloguing, but then brain-locked and began numbering cases as if by tens. Not a Cardinal Sin, I know, but I've tried to go back and edit that into correctness. Anyway, due to that brilliant revelation, I'll now TRY to get it right and began this list with #45. I think.

Cases #s 45-54 are thumbnailed as usual, and rough-mapped below. There are two that I really like, and two more that I like almost as well. The two "stars" are the 1902 case and the 1940s case, and I'll leave them for last.

Case #45: Some year just after the turn of the century, c.1900 --- Prout's Neck. ME. Witnesses waving and shouting on shore. Fishermen rowed in direction of pointing. Close to the beach under the shade of trees floated a "sea monster". It was an "enormous snake" with a flat head widening at the rear. It was similar to the famous incident at Nantucket. The animal floated there with its head raised well out of the water. When it finally focussed on the fishermen, who were right up to it, it calmly turned and swam away to sea.

#46: Cape Ferrat Bay, Bay of Biscay [no date given on this mini-clipping]. Carcass [we have three such carcass cases this time, so I've regaled us with a random carcass picture for visual stimulation]. This one was said to resemble a sea elephant 13 feet long and 9 feet wide. It weighed several tons. Huge ears protruded from on top of its flat head. Its feet were webbed and it had thick black body hair.

#47: Gloucester, MA, 1960. Witnesses reported a "sea serpent" 70 feet long with a snake-like head colored black and white. It had "bulging eyes". Unfortunately for our wonderment, another story said that the thing was just 15 feet long.

#48: Suez, Egypt, 1950. Carcass. 36 feet long and 7 feet thick. Twin seven foot tusks protruding from head with a vestige of a trunk. Speculation was that a normal elephant had somehow died at sea.

#49: Saco River, ME, 1967. Carcass. An 8 foot skeleton with a head like a snake. It had fins and some "feathers" [!!] clinging to the bones.

#50: Research Submarine, Atlantic Ocean Gulf Stream, 1969. [picture at left is not this but sort of gets the major point across anyway]. Research team saw schools of black-colored fish 30 foot long as average. Also spotted a huge Medusa Jellyfish four feet in diameter with 30 foot long tentacles. They were convinced that there is a whole lot of weird stuff down there.

#51: Hamilton, Bermuda, 1960. Seven witnesses saw a creature greater than 30 foot long and shaped like a serpent ['tubular']. It was black colored. A local scientist was quoted saying that he thought it must be a whale, a porpoise, or rubber tyres. [<-- Bermuda is British, remember]. Unfortunately for him, three of the witnesses were nuns. Sister de Chantel followed his opinion with: "I know a whale, a porpoise, or a rubber tyre when I see one. I saw a sea serpent!". And, if he has any sense, that will end THAT debate!!

#52: Burra Isle, Shetland Islands, 1903. The crew of a fishing boat saw an animal 30 foot long, with a horn on its head and enormous flippers [one was seen; presumed two]. The thing destroyed several nets. Later in the year, in two incidents with four witnesses each, something was seen in the same location which was described as a "sea monster".

#53: Off the Maldive Islands, WW2 era, but exact year unspecified. British Admiralty trawler. This is another one of those "sea as smooth as glass" cases. It was nightshift and the sea was full of phosphorescence. [ strange balls of light were constantly floating by]. They fished at night by setting down towards the surface a bright lantern-like light. All manner of sea life were always attracted to it. The scene was, in fact, described as consistently magical to watch. This night, suddenly, all the fish et al vanished. Instead, in the lighted area, the deck officer saw only one large circle of greenish light. It resolved into one large eye. It was "attached" to a Giant Squid. The officer walked the length of the ship's deck and back; it lay all along the boat, and its size was "colossal". It was greater than the 175 foot length of the vessel, with tentacles at least 24 inches thick. Details like the suction disks and the parrot-beak were quite clear. After about 15 minutes, wherein it moved only languidly, it suddenly puffed up and shot away. (( now unless one of you folks tell me differently, this is probably my favorite Giant Squid case that I've heard about)). {but tell me if it's bogus}.

#54: Somewhere near the Gulf of Benin, Central Africa [5.31 South // 4.42 West], 1902. Here we are in another phosphorescent sea. The witnesses of the S.S.Fort Salisbury noticed a long dark object making a long luminous trailing wake. Two lights, like Masthead lamps, seemed mounted on the upper edge of its body [hmmmm...twilight zone already]. All of this sunk below the surface together. Upon coming up to the site of submergence, they could see a "huge monster" underneath the water. It has a scaly back with scales a foot in diameter. Barnacles grew on some of these. Shiny twinkling lights shown here and there on the creature. The length of the creature was 500-600 feet [!!!!!]. The body's width was 30 feet at the widest. They surmised that there must be two areas for fins, due to the disturbances of the water. There was a strong odor. Later, to the Zoologist, the Captain vouched for his second officer and the two crew.

Well, as in the popular lingo: THAT's what I'M talking about!! Please don't tell me it was an April Fool or something. Well, OK, go ahead --- Truth trumps fun, I guess.

We've got over 50 incidents on our map so far, and there are still quite a few pages in this "Ivan Notebook". If we don't get too much repetition [and I'm beginning to see some], maybe we can push 100. So, till next time ... who is the fish, and who is the fisherman??

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part four.

Onwards into the depths of the ocean in search of monsters!!! Ten more newsclippings from Ivan will get us to forty so far. Whenever I get involved in an anomalistic claim, and the pile of reports reaches up towards one hundred, I begin to get a creepy feeling that, regardless of the "strangeness" of whatever the business is, there seems to be some foundation to it --- and very likely NOT just the stupidity of us humans. Sea monsters, in the guise of the "serpent" or elongated variety, are starting to approach that level of "Hmmmm, Yes" in our current story. There have been some hoaxes in here; and there have been other non-credible weirdnesses, but a pattern is forming, isn't it?? Well, let's keep on, and see what there is to see.

Ivan's "individual reports" newsclips notebook offers us these next ten encounter claims:

#35: 38degrees south/ 13degrees east roughly in the Cape of Good Hope area, 1855. On another of those remarkably calm smooth water days, a huge thing raised its head 30 feet out of the water. The head was about twelve feet long. The body was black and estimated at 180 feet long. It was 20 feet in diameter. There was a white stripe down the side of the head, and a "pouch" of lighter-colored loose skin under the chin. On its back was at least one "protuberance" shaped like a small water cask.

#36: Lochs, Lewis, UK/ 1856. A "sea serpent" manifested in an inland lake near the ocean. It was 40 foot long.

#37: 29-degrees north/ 34+degrees west [roughly in the area of the Azores]/ 1856. In a sea so calm it was "glassy", an elongated undulating thing broke the surface, swimming strongly and creating ripples. It was 40 feet long and swam with its head raised.

#38: Near Bathurst, South Africa, coming from Madagascar or Mozambique area/ 1863. A huge "snake" manifest. It was about 100 feet long and swam with both head and tail out of the water. Its body was about a foot in diameter and dark brown. There was a "mane" on its head.

#39: 19-degrees south/ 10.6-degrees west [roughly near St.Helena Island]/ 1858. An "enormous sea serpent" swam rapidly with the ship, holding its head 30 feet out of the water.

#40: Waimarara Beach, New Zealand/ 1950. A carcass washed up on the beach [near Hastings] which was 30 foot long and with a head three feet wide. Described alternately as a "sea serpent", a huge "alligator-like" monster, or a decayed whale, the thing was stated as having one tusk sticking out of its head. A scientist said it was a Layards Whale, despite the fact that they only grow half this size

#41: Gloucester, MA/ 1817. Brief mention of this encounter with the "huge serpentine" monster with the head the size of a horse.

#42: Off the coast of Brazil [no further location given]/ 1905. A large strange animal with a head and neck like a huge turtle [raised up eight feet out of the surface], showed nearby a ship. It seemed to have "rubbery" skin. {My moneys on something in the "sea lion family" on this one}.

#43: During a military blockade in the North Sea/ 1917. An animal similar in description to the previous "turtle" surfaced and was fired upon by the British Navy.

#44: Long Beach Island, NJ/ 1906. This is the report which goes with the illustration/news story on this page. A "great snake" greater than 60 feet

long raised its head twenty feet above the surface. The head was like an eel's, but four feet in diameter and having eyes the size of dinner plates. Its mouth was four feet wide. The animal was black and its texture slick. No fins nor protuberances were seen. There was a flabby loose-skin gathering under its chin. It swam like slithering. This thing is a bit like a junior version of #35. Here's our accumulating map. A "little" variety taking place here, but it's obvious that we have a huge English-speaking reporting bias going on. It would be nice to hear of a completely different culture's collection of Sea Monster encounters. [I know that Heuvelmanns tried to do this and Gary Mangiacopra tries as best he can today but I'm not sure that we have a convincing culturally-independent set --- like we have, for instance, with UFOs].

As a sidenote: here's a better-look at the Ballard WA hoax monster which was featured as the Yarmouth UK monster of 1897, even though this monstrosity was made in 1907. Another bunch of fun-loving very unhelpful idiots at work.

Peeking at Ivan's SITU files: meaningless reports of sea monsters.Part three.

Looking at ten more of these Sanderson notebook file newsclippings. For some reason, after the first two, a lot of 19th century clippings showed up.

Massachusetts, South Africa, and the Bristol Channel got featured in this set. They are, as usual, "mapped" crudely at the bottom by adding them to the previous twenty-four cases. I'm getting the impression that some of these sooner or later are going to duplicate themselves, and I may not pick up on all of that when it happens. You guys keep an eye out for those errors.

Case #25: off Brockton, MA, 1964. Minimalist report of a "sea monster" with a series of humps on its back.

#26: Mann Hill Beach, Scituate, MA, 1970. Another minimalist report. This time: thirty foot long "sea creature" like an elasmosaurus.

#27: Atlantic Ocean off South American coast [latitude 34.50 south; longitude 48 west]. 1824 0r 1834 [case is listed two ways on two different documents]. A "serpent", 40-foot long, no appendages, dark colored. Body = "barrel-sized" in diameter. Head held two feet above the surface and the size of a "ten-gallon keg".

#s 28&29: Gloucester Bay, MA, 1835 & 1834. Very long sea creature with head as big as a barrel and a "mane" on its neck. Head was raised seven to eight feet above surface as it swam. Motion was "serpentine". Each time it rose it made a hissing sound like steam escaping. Seen by several crew members. When told, another crewman said that he had seen an animal matching the description exactly while on the Bay the previous summer.

#30: Labrador Sea, 1834. On a voyage from Montreal to Greenock, UK, there was seen the head and "snout" of a "great fish" resting on the surface of the water. The head was twelve feet to its dome above the surface and 25 feet wide/long. The "snout" was 50 feet long. One very large dark "eye" stared out of the side of the head. The whole thing was colored a mottled light and dark green. The skin had a ribbed texture and the thing swam as fast as the ship.

#31: Camp's Bay, near Capetown, South Africa, 1845 or 1846. Observers saw a line of shining black objects like "casks" bobbing up and down. The line was 150-200 feet long. Object was one thing however as it showed in its entirety above the water during one sequence. This was one of those possibly paranormal days of water as smooth as glass; nevertheless, the thing produced frothing foam at one end. "Animal" suddenly turned and swam swiftly away.

#32: Table Bay, near Capetown, South Africa, 1857. This is the case of the drawing in the accompanying illustration above. Report is fragmentary. Case involved a blob-like body with an extremely long "tentacle" or tail [I am just interpreting the drawing now; there was little in the partial clip --- note, by the way that the pictured clip speaks of more than one case]. One witness fired two shots at the thing. It apparently whipped around radically between shots.

#33&34: Waters between Ireland and Bristol Channel, 1907? [reference in notebook does not have a date.] This is the Arthur Rostron case [and a supporting one]. Rostron and deckhands see "sea serpent" head and neck rise out of water nearby ship. Head elevated 8 or 9 feet from surface. Its neck was a foot in diameter. The head turned with suddenness like a bird's does as it hunts the ground. Later in port at Queenstown, Rostron and his captain heard of a report by a fisherman who had a confrontation with a "sea serpent" near the Bristol Channel the following day.

One cannot help being interested in the cases where there seemed to be an independent confirmation [or something very near to such]. [ a la 28/29 and 33/34]. #32 is a wild thing but not unlike#30. #27 seems a classic. With stuff like this being attested to, it is no wonder that someone like Oudemans would write a book about these alleged beasts by the end of the century.

The bad news is: I've had three days of recovering from back muscle pull, which led to some pelvic shifting about and now I'm two further days into a different siege with different lower back nuisance. This literal pain-in-the-back is messing up my ability to do any serious reading ---thus I haven't been able to work up anything specifically on the Caddy stuff yet. Well, they say that Patience is a virtue. Back is mildly screaming now in fact, so ... so long till next time.