Football Pitch Serpent

[Stanforda]

I remember some time ago when the Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World program was being shown, there was an episode with Sea Serpents as the subject.
There was an interview with an elderly man - in which he tells of how a huge creature came out of the sea and found it's way onto the local Football pitch, where after a while it was killed and buried in the grounds of the picth.

This account has always stuck in my mind, as it was not(I presume) reported more publicly, I have found no reference to the event anywhere other than the program in mention.

Has anyone else heard of this?
And more importantly can someone post more details as to what happened?

 

[gerardwilkie]

This is the story here:

Gourock Scotland in 1942 had a twenty-eight foot-long something wash ashore. It had a long neck, flat head with large pointed teeth, a long tail
and was covered in long, black hair. One man who examined the
creature, the town councillor Charles Rankin, said the body "resembled
a huge lizard". Unfortunately, the monster had landed in a militarily
restricted area (this was in the middle of WWII, remember) and no photos
were allowed. The body was chopped up and buried by the military, as
the smell was beginning to cause a problem

http://www.geocities.com/vcmtalk/WEIRD.doc

There is now a football pitch on the site . I used to regularly pass through Gourock and I clearly remember going to visit it after seeing it on Arthur C Clarke . That was back about 1982 though , so I may need have to make visit there again soon to see if it is still there - probably wont be able to find it now as the area has changed so much since then.

Here's Karl Shuker's opinion on the matter :

http://www.strangemag.com/seaserpcarcsshuk.html

 

[Anonymous]

Geophys

Ring up your local archaeological society and get them to geophys the pitch!

You never know, if you badger enough people, someone might enter into the spirit of things and arrange a small survey.

This is definately something worth investigating.

Alternatively of course, the story might have been started in wartime to scare off superstitious locals to stop them wandering too close to the military area, although personally if I were told a sea monster was buried in my town I'd be more interested in finding it, not less.

 

[Stanforda]

Thank you for the informative replies.
The Arthur C. Clarke program has been recently released on a DVD boxset, I think I'll have to pick up a copy, it made great viewing and hasn't been repeated in years :?