August in the North Atlantic: Sea Serpents and Merbeings
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 28th, 2006
Manitoba Daily Free Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba
August 28, 1891
THE SEA SERPENT.
An Old Friend Re-appears and is Viewed by Canadian Fishermen.
SHEDIAC, N.B., Aug. 26. — Five reliable fishermen report seeing a sea serpent off Richibacto shore. It was two hundred feet long, about as thick as a man’s body, had a flat shaped head with eyes on the top like a frog. It resembled a snake and sometimes raised its head six feet out of the water, and its body curved like an immense hawser. They were near enough to see scales on its body and were in view of it for an hour.
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Lincoln Evening News
Lincoln, Nebraska
April 4, 1898
An Eighteenth Century Wonder.
An amusing and detailed account of a merman seen in the Atlantic, written apparently in good faith, ends with the following description of the monster, which may possibly have been a seal or a sea lion: “That monster is about eight feet long, his skin is brown and tawny, without any scales, all his motions are like those of men, the eyes of a proportionate size, a little mouth, a large and flat nose, very white teeth, black hair, the chin covered with a mossy beard, a sort of whiskers under the nose, the ears like those of men, [illegible] between the fingers of his hands and feet like those of ducks. In a word, he is a well shaped man. Which is certified to be true by Captain Oliver Morin and John Martin, pilot, and by the whole crew, consisting of two-and-thirty men.” (An article from Brest in the “Memoirs of Trevoux.”) This monster was mentioned in The Gazette of Amsterdam Oct. 12, 1725, where it is said it was seen in the ocean in August of the same year. — Household Words.
Thanks to Jerome Clark for these two items.
Please click on the image for the full-size editorial image.
Thanks to Mia B. Smith, Permissions Coordinator at American Scientist, who informs me the copyright credit for this illustration is Bill Long, 2005.
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I am sure there was and still is a lot of misidentifed sea monsters or creatures that are known to us. But I myself believe 100% that there is still some very large creatures either not known or thought to be extinct that are still out there in the open ocean. I believe unknown sea serpents, creatures, monsters are more in the realm of possibilty than any lake monsters of which, yes, I am a little skeptical. Not to say they are not real just a little harder to believe for myself.
If you want a sea monster or mermaid just look on ebay. This one would have been great for my annual haunted house.
My grandest wish is to see the US cut NASA’s budget in half and use the other half to fund an underwater equivalent. There are more things of interest to me here on Earth than in all of space that we can currently reach.
JRC we agree once again.
I believe the the oceans hold more secrets then we could imagine, but I do take a little offence to the term sea serpent.Who has any proof that theses creatures are serpents of any kind. or even reptiles for that matter. they are more likely fish of the giant eel variety
than a serpent. Isn’t it time we started correcting this error of centurys ago instead of continuing to use the term so
easily.
I agree oldbutnotstupid, but shouldn’t we find them first? Or, the other way to get around it is for those of us who views/thinks of them as real (maybe the term is wishes) should gather together and find a system to come up with new names for them. Maybe have a linguist there to help us come up with something that describes the creature, no matter where it maybe. It’s description almost sounds serpant, except for the eye placement. I don’t remember, do eels have visible scales? Maybe it’s a whole new class all to itself.
Um I think shumway10973 should take another look at the dates on the posted examples. 1891 and 1898. These are just historical records that Loren is posting as examples. But no, eels have more of a hide per se.
Once again Loren great job at getting this story. I think its about time that researchers purchase a high tech submarine so they can continue to research the areas of the ocean that other researchers cant get to.
When I was a little tyke in Michigan where I am originally from, my family and I were in a little motorboat out on a lake. I was only five or six and cannot recall the name of the lake, but my dad and I were in the murky lake waters when out to the side of me I swear I saw what looked like a tentacle kind of like an octopus come up, wiggle a bit and then go back down. I got so freaked I climbed back in the boat and noone else saw “it”. I was crying my eyes out I was trully scared. I know it was not a fish, I saw tentacles. Just thought I’d share I hate water.
Shumway, Heuvelmans came up with a classification system for marine cryptids, as have Loren Coleman and Patrick Hughe.
There are probably some varieties of giant jellyfish and other deep sea creatures that have yet to be discovered that might be quite a bit different from known sea creatures, but I highly doubt there are any that can live in shallow waters. If anyone ever sees these things it’s on the ultra-rare occasion a dead one floats.
It was just last year that a new species of squid was discovered hanging around oil rigs…they happened to catch sight of one on cameras they had at the bases of the rigs and saw it…they began checking other cameras at other rigs and found other sightings as well…and the new squid was measuring out at 28 feet long.
So, to say we have discovered all of the “big” things in the ocean is pompous and wrong.
I seem to remember reading a book stating that, through complex calculations, some guy had determined that at least 48 large sea creatures remain to be discovered.