Comments on: Big, Hissing and Reptilian

By: corrick

corrick — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 04:23:29 +0000

Oarfish? Those illustrations depicted are from the 18th centuary and have nothing whatsoever to do with the article.
The 1889 Boston Globe article was a 100% hoax.

btw, broblanco1 your oarfish illustration has also been identified as the penis of a whale.

By: oroblanco1

oroblanco1 — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 03:49:17 +0000

The illustration is good enough to ID the creature as an Oarfish.

Thank you for sharing this one, I love to read the old reports when there were fewer pranksters at work. In this case it looks to me that the creature they saw was a stray Oarfish.

By: corrick

corrick — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 03:28:52 +0000

Thanks so much for the articles. I mostly grew up in Darien and my sister-in-law is from Duxbury, Mass. A double hit.
Going to forward the Darien sighting article to a number of friends for a good laugh.

By: springheeledjack

springheeledjack — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 03:26:09 +0000

While I have no doubt oarfish grow large and if you ran into one, I’d see thinking it was a sea serpent…

However, if you actually read accounts of sea serpents, most of the accounts talk of the critter raising up out of the water, head and a neck (depending on your critter) and all kinds of other mischief. That does not fit with an oar fish.

The oarfish has become the 20th andd 21st century scapegoat for all sea serpent sightings and it doesn’t hold water…literally. People like it because it can fit the size parameters and it really is an odd looking thing. But again, an oar fish doesn’t undulate and it’s certainly not able to raise its head up out of the water to any degree and for any length of time to work as a sea serpent sighting. Also a lot of sightings do not have the characteristic back fin that oar fish sport.

Nope, ain’t buying it.