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Sea Serpents & Monsters (General; Miscellaneous)

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Cornish Sea Monster

Richard La Monica is a sasquatch researcher, based in Ohio. In an article about him it was mentioned that his Cornish grandparents had told him about a monster sometimes seen in Falmouth Bay. I emailed him about this, and this is part of his rely:

"... My mother, aged 85, was born in Cornwall, but came to the U.S., with my grandparents in I believe 1918. My mother would have been around three years old then. My grandparents came to America, after my grandfather returned from South Africa, where he was a foreman in a gold mine. My grandfather's name was John Wood Matta. My grandmother's maiden name was Elsie May Fewins. They were both born and lived in St. Austell.

My grandmother never really mentioned the mysterious parts of Cornwall, but on occasion, my grandfather, usually after seeing something of interest on the TV, would say things like, "Richard, you know Cornwall has a monster in the bay just like that".
Usually, this statement would come just after an announcement about Nessie, or some similar creature. He would mention Falmouth Bay, when given the chance, but really wouldn't elaborate too much about it. He was a God fearing man, and I believe talking about such things, to him, was in a way
blasphemous. At least, that is the way I saw it.

I am not sure if he ever really saw the creature Morgawr himself or not, and I don't really recall that he ever used that name, but the way he would describe it, would indicate to me that he might have. His description was that of a serpents head, long, black neck, and large, dark body. I don't recall his saying how big it was in actual or estimated length, but the way he described it, would have had to be fairly large, and long. I am sure my grandfather spent many a childhood day, in and around the bay, as he had a very adventurous spirit.

I was a very young lad when he would sit me upon his knee, and talk of his home. I have probably forgotten much since then, but remember his talks of Cornwall rather fondly. I may still have a couple of cousins living there, but of the Matta family, my mother is the last. I was told, most of my grandfather's ancestry, had names from building materials. Kinda funny to me, but the names were Brick, Stone, Wood. My grandparents, have long since passed away now, but their Cornish spirits still linger on. I do hope one day to make an attempt to find out about my possible cousins, and to come see the land that was once my mother's family homeland...

Best Regards, Rich La Monica"

This is an interesting story, dating from well before the modern interest in the Monster: it became news in the 70s (which is when the name Morgawr arose). There isa lot of info about Morgawr on the web, and I think Richard's family memories tend to confirm other early reports.

Richard's Bigfoot website is at
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/6591/
(Hear a bigfoot howl...!)

See Also:
Morgawr! (Cornish Sea Serpent)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/morgawr-cornish-sea-serpent.4719/#post-1655858
 
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"dinosaur/sea monster" pictures

Just found this page. It's a "Creationist" page that claims the earth is 6000 years old, dinosaurs and man have always lived together, etc., etc...... A couple of the pictures on the site were unfamiliar to me though. Specifically the first and last ones on the page.
Comments?

drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=15
Link is dead. No archived version including the photos found. The MIA webpage (text only) can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020417155050/http://www.drdino.com:80/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=15


sureshot
 
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Ever notice how these sites (and, come to think of it, books in a similar vein) almost always use photographs that are big enough to show 'something', but not big enough to show it clearly?
 
The first one is obviously some sort of whale/dolphin carcass which just rotted in an "interesting" manner. That head is NOT a DINO head. Definately a whale head.

The last one looks like a plastic model.

My fav quote from that site:
These two pictures are of an apparent Plesiosaur caught by a Japanese fishing boat off the coast of New Zealand in 1977. It had apparently been dead for a couple weeks. It was 32 feet long and weighed 4000 pounds. Some have argued that this is a basking shark because the protein was 96% similar to shark protein. No one has ever seen plesiosaur protein to know what it should look like. Scores of vastly different animals have very similar proteins. This only proves a common designer for both.

Well, plesiosaurs are basically reptiles. They have bones.

Sharks are fish. And they have no bones (cartilidge is used instead).

Chances are shark protein = shark or shark-like. Not extinct reptile with a a skeleton.
 
1st one, indisputably whale or dolphin...

last one indisputably a model. I bet you can buy that in a souvenir shop.

The Nessie is one of Frank Searle's, notorious for, guess what, his fake Nessie pictures.

The Lake Champlain one, I can never decide what I make of it. But strikes me as way too good to be true, and if you look closely, the neck doesn't seem to be connected to the hump, it curves off in the opposite direction at the base.

The New Zealand one is so decomposed, it could be literally anything. Basking sharks decompose to a very similar shape, however, and if it has sharkish protein... I'm going to stab in the dark and say "shark".

They've also failed to notice that plesiosaurs aren't actually dinsosaurs, they're reptiles.
Damaging any possible credibilty by picking the shoddiest collection of monster pics they could, and doing zero research.
Good old CSE ministry!
 
First one is a whale.

Last two are basking sharks.

Third from last is - get this - an elephant. Look at it again and think "elephant." It's so obviously an elephant it's funny.

And here in the States they want to get this stuff taught in schools.

(edit: I didn't even count the last "stuffed" one as a picture. I assumed it was a model until I read the caption and they were trying to pass it off as a real animal!! What crap.)
 
I noticed that Texans pretty quickly voted the guy that had teaching Evolution rendered illegal out of office at the next opportunity. Whether because they actually disagreed or just didn't like being a global laughing stock it isn't clear.
 
We still laugh at Americans.

That last one does look like a plastic model. But since the thing was stuffed and not moving, would it have been so hard to take a big and detailed picture of it?

That first picture, I remember I saw some solution tot hat. And it seemed really stupid when you realized it. But which one is an elephant?
 
Oh my Gawd! It is an Elephant! Totally an elephant!

I have seen pictures of them swimming on TV. And that is how they do it!

The power of suggestion.....
 
*g* a drowning elephant? Seriously, this is one of Frank Searle's. Living in Inverness, he's about as likely to find an elephant to photograph as a real Nessie. The picture is one of a series, all showing pretty much the same static shape. Even an elephant would move from frame to frame, right?
 
Slytherin said:
*g* a drowning elephant?
Who says it's drowning?

Good amphibious animals, elephants. They cope.
 
I was in no way implying that elephants can't swim, and I apologise for any offence caused to persons who interpreted my light-hearted remark in this way.
It's just, if it is an elephant, it's only barely got it's nose and head above water. Probably knackered out after swimming all the way from Africa? (Or indeed, India.)

Frank Searle is a kook in the nicest possible use of the word, who used to live in a shack by Loch Ness, abd produced about 20 or 30 so called Nessie pix. If a single one was genuine, he must be kicking himself because the high volume of (very poor) fakes he also produced would discredit it entirely. Can't find the sequence of photos on the net, so I scanned them to my yahoo photo album...

http://photos.yahoo.com/nyarth_kyukon

and click on "my photos". The sequence of three is the one I think the CSE example was taken from, and there's another one, taken with what looks uncannily like the same model, only dated a year earlier.
 
I looked at those photos. Pretty grainy and indistinct. What is there to show that these are pictures in Inverness and not say, Burma? Maybe he just bought some negs from someone who shot an elephant swimming?

The thing is, it looks EXACTLY like an elephant swimming. They don't float well, so only the top of the head is visible and the trunk (which is used as a snorkel).
 
I suppose anything is possible!
It would explain why the "mouth" of the Nessie never seems to close (although so would it being a model/interesting treetrunk)

The 1972 pic, the one that shows the hill on the farshore, that looks like the Ness to me, although it admittedly isn't clear enough to be sure. Looking closely, I think the first in the sequence of 3 is actually a crop of this '72 picture. Whatever it is is exactly the same shape and proportion in both. Even the ripple pattern is the same.
The dates are screwed up, but Searle never was very accurate about such trivialities :rolleyes:
 
What about the size? I mean the sea serpent is probably not the same size as an elephant head.
 
Stunning, just stunning

That last one is a beauty, and it's in a 'Museum' (possibly the gift shop?)

Cheers sureshot, thats cheered me up no end:D :D :D
 
But how do you determine size when there is nothing next to it for scale?

This is something that has plagued Cryptozoology since Daguerre started mucking about with silver and dark boxes!

Many "Sea Monster" pics lack scale or perspective. You see an object in the middle of an expanse. So you can't really say how big something is or isn't.
 
Rhode Island Sea Monster

I just read the August 1 article quoted below, and as usual when I read cryptozoological stories, I checked the web to see what I could find that sound like, or looks like, the creature featured.

The News Herald article describes the creature thus:

"The sea creature -- described as being about 15-feet long, with four-inch teeth, greenish-black skin and a white belly -- was swimming around Carney and popping its head out of the water to expose its teeth and hiss in a manner that could not soon be forgotten, Carney said." The Rhode Island Herald News Online

The first thing I found was the frilled shark, an eel-like shark which grows to six feet, has a formidable mouth full of teeth. It has a relation, the cow shark which grows up to sixteen feet and has a white belly--it is also known to feed near the surface.

URL: http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cach...lachiformes.htm+eel+like+shark&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

URL: http://elasmophiles.tripod.com/sharkslordsofthesea/id8.html

There are several notable differences between these sharks and the description of the "sea monster". For one thing, the frilled shark is only about six feet long and dwells in deep water on the continental shelf. Still, such a creature turning up off Rhode Island would be just as Fortean as a new and unknown species.

It is a pity that "baffled" scientists don't do a simple web search, but then they are likely to be collared by the press and may not have time to spend even a couple minutes (as I did) looking for a likely candidate (you may think a deep sea shark is an unlikely candidate, but at least it is in the running). ;)

Mind you, the green moray eel can grow over seven feet in the wild, which makes it even closer in size to the R.I. sea monster, but it would be really anomalous to see one on the surface, I should think. Also, it doesn't have a white belly.

Anyway, whatever it was (if anything), it never hurts a detective to have ID photos of some of the prime suspects.

Rhode Island Sea Monster URL: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=4918095&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=6

Source: Rhode Island Herald News Online: http://www.heraldnews.com
 
Something wonderful I nearly missed

The word "cryptid" caught my eye in this Google item:

http://www.herper.com/CZlistMA.html

It contains a check-list of sightings of marine mystery animals, including one which might be relevant to the RI sighting:

"Shark: "Eel-like shark" or other species
Reported from off the coast of Maine
Shuker 1997; Roesch 1997"

Go to the site's main page and you can download a wonderful PDF file of the cryptozoological classic, "The Great Sea Serpent", by Oudemans.

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

I love finding these things.
 
There was a program on Discovery channel a few nights ago about this.

The program was doing well until they got Doc Shiels on talking about how he counjoured up the beast using his powers as a magician !

At that point, I realised that even if this creature does exist, no-one will ever take it seriously.

The program suggested that it is quite possible to get giant turtles and sharks in this area, which could produce a 'humped' creature if swimming in line, but there were reports of a long necked creature by several people.
 
Bump! Cryptokid's post has been moved to this thread.
 
Update

I am notifying you that the findings on the John Holmes Case is delayed because the member of GUST in the US will be Using US Naval Equipment to analyse the video.
It will take around 2-3 weeks

GUST has use the same equipment to analyse the famous Rines photo of Nessie and the results are on GUST,s site

http://www.cryptozoology.st/
 
Crivvens! Jings! Help m' Boab!

So if it is a plesiosaur, where does it spend its down time?

I still think it's some sort of ghost-like presence, preserved in the unique circumstances created by the pent up energies stored in the gi-normous stress fracture that is the Great Glen and Loch Ness.
 
French Sea Monster

French timbers are shivered by sea monsterhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-544367,00.html
From Adam Sage in Paris

IF THE flamboyant French sailor Olivier de Kersauson fails to defeat the British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur in their race to break the round-the-world sailing record, at least he has a good excuse.
He says that his trimaran, Geronimo, was attacked by a giant squid that mistook the boat for its supper. The monster struck on Sunday night as M de Kersauson and his ten-man crew were crossing the Atlantic to the west of Gibraltar in their attempt to win the Jules Verne Trophy.

“I was at the helm when I felt strange vibrations,” M de Kersauson, 58, said. “They were very strong. We slowed down the boat. We took down the sails and got out the torches. My first mate, Didier Ragault, went down (below) to try to find out what was going on.

“All of a sudden, he saw something moving. They were tentacles.

“It was pulling incredibly hard, and rolled us down so far that we were taking on water. When we came to a stop, the tentacles stopped gripping us. We saw it (the squid) from the rear of the boat. It was enormous. In 40 years of sailing, I’ve never seen anything like it, although I’ve heard tales about this sort of thing.”

When M de Kersauson’s comments reached France, they were greeted with wry smiles among compatriots whose immediate response was to ask whether he had been at the bottle.

M de Kersausan is also a radio chat-show celebrity known for his macho humour, his love of rum and his talent for making the news. But marine life specialists say that his claim is plausible.

M Ragault recounted his meeting with the squid. “When I went down, I saw a tentacle through the porthole. It was bigger than my arm. Then when I went back up and when it unhooked itself from the boat, I saw it. It must have been seven, eight, or nine metres (up to 30ft).” French gastronomes have worked out that if the squid were cooked in the traditional way — sliced, soaked in batter and deep fried — the rings would be the size of car tyres.

Sigurd von Boletsky, from the Oceanographical Observatory in southern France, said that the giant squid, or Architeuthis dux, often grew to between 23ft and 29ft long.

Although many sailors have claimed to have been attacked by Architeuthis dux, few of the squids have been seen alive, and most research has been carried out on corpses that have been washed ashore. The biggest such corpse measured 57ft and was found in 1887 on the New Zealand shore.

The creatures attack fish with what observers compare to a parrot’s beak that rips off the flesh.

Michel Ségonzac, of the French Institute for Research into Exploitation of the Sea, said: “These animals hunt in the deep, but they sometimes come up to the surface at night.” He said that the squid was interested only in food and would be unlikely to attack a boat. “If it attacked de Kersauson’s yacht, it must have realised that the hull was tasteless,” he said.

The Geronimo set off from Brittany last Friday in its attempt to win back the Jules Verne Trophy from another French sailor, Bruno Peyron, who sailed around the world in 64 days, eight hours last year.

Miss MacArthur plans to set out in the next few days in her boat, Kingfisher II. If she wins the trophy, M de Kersauson may well be happy to blame his failure on Architeuthis dux.
 
Sea monster found? Or more of the same (some hope!)

Giant Sea Creature Baffles Chilean Scientists
Tue July 1, 2003 03:05 PM ET
SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Chilean scientists were baffled on Tuesday by a huge, gelatinous sea creature found washed up on the southern Pacific coast and were seeking international help identifying the mystery specimen.
The dead creature was mistaken for a beached whale when first reported about a week ago, but experts who went to see it said the 40-foot-long mass of decomposing lumpy gray flesh apparently was an invertebrate.

"We'd never before seen such a strange specimen, We don't know if it might be a giant squid that is missing some of its parts or maybe it's a new species," said Elsa Cabrera, a marine biologist and director of the Center for Cetacean Conservation in Santiago.

Photographs showed a round leathery substance like a mammoth jelly fish, about as long as a school bus.

Giant squid live at a depth of 9,500 feet and only rise to the surface when they die. Specimens have been known to be as long as 60 feet.

There was speculation that the mass might be a whale skin, but Cabrera said it was too big and did not have the right texture or smell.

Cabrera said she was contacting Chilean and international organizations in the hope that they could help shed some light on the find.

The Chilean Navy first spotted the mystery specimen along with another large mass, but the other dead animal turned out to be a dead whale.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....UYCRBAEKSFEY?type=scienceNews&storyID=3021751
--

My first thought is another one of those globbers that wash up occasionally, but initial investigations say it is not (whether those are right or wrong is up to debate).

The second, that there was a dead whale, may be interesting. Historical accounts have described battles between sea monsters and whales (whether true or not), and the whale may have died trying to eat whatever this was. A new species of squid (Body length of 40 feet!)

Or is it a blobber, a mass of whale blubber?

My hopes are up. Doing a google now to hopefully find pictures.
 
Picture here!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3039102.stm

Giant blob baffles marine scientists

The 12-metre-wide remains of a sea creature found by the Chilean navy are puzzling marine scientists, who think it may be a new species.

The remains measure 12 metres across

The specimen was at first taken for a beached whale when it was washed up a week ago but experts who have seen it say it appears not to have a backbone.

"We'd never before seen such a strange specimen.
 
My guess from photos:

Some sort of giant jelly fish.

Whale blubber.

Badly decayed giant squid sans arms.

Badly decayed giant octopus sans arms (looks like it sort of).

Prolly wrong on all counts.
 
Or possibly something which was, I dunno, denser at a greater level of pressure? Or am I just being really obvious? It vaguely reminded me of the end of 'Kraken Wakes'.
 
Good grief! I was eating my lunch when I clicked on that piccy! How about a NSFL next time?!!! (There's always room for Jello!)
 
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