Unsolved Mysteries of the Sea Read online

  Of all the great sea monsters of myth, legend, and prehistory, the dreaded Kraken holds the most prominent place. Tennyson’s famous poem captures the atmosphere perfectly:

  Below the thunders of the upper deep;

  Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,

  His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

  The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

  About his shadowy sides: above him swell

  Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

  And far away into the sickly light,

  From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

  Unnumber’d and enormous polypi

  Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.

  There hath he lain for ages and will lie

  Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep

  Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

  Then once by men and angels to be seen,

  In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

  Something that was described as a Kraken-type monster at the time was encountered by the crew of a French gunboat, the Alecton, on November 30, 1861. They fired cannon shot into it and discharged various small arms, but nothing seemed to affect it very much. Finally, they harpooned it and attempted to get a line around it. The rope slipped until it jammed against the creature’s dorsal fin, but as the sailors tried to haul it aboard, the body of their monster disintegrated, leaving them with only a relatively small portion of its tail section.

  Arriving with the trophy at Tenerife, the captain contacted the French Consul, displayed the evidence, and made a full report. By December 30, this evidence reached the French Academy of Sciences, where Arthur Mangin, among other highly traditional and formal orthodox scientists, proceeded to ridicule the evidence provided by the Alecton’s curious catch: “No wise person, especially the man of science, would permit stories of these extraordinary creatures into the catalogue.”

  With a few honourable exceptions, it was automatically assumed by the ultra-cautious, traditional, scientific elite of the mid-nineteenth century that reports of things that did not fit their schemata were deliberate lies, hoaxes, wild exaggerations, or hallucinations.

  Erik Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, who was an indefatigable chronicler of weird and wonderful aquatic lifeforms, described something Krakenesque in his Natural History of Norway (1752–3). The bishop believed his beast was two and a half kilometres around, with arms (or tentacles) long enough and strong enough to drag the biggest warship of his day straight to the bottom of the ocean. He appears to have had something like a very large representative of the giant squid tribe in mind, and that certainly fits in well with an account from Dingle Bay in Ireland dating from 1673 — almost a century before Pontoppidan’s book appeared. The Irish broadsheet describing the Dingle Bay monster said that it had been killed by James Steward “when it came up at him out of the sea.” The picturesque language of the broadsheet was surprisingly accurate in its description of the creature as having eight long “horns” covered with hundreds of “buttons”: very squid-like to the modern marine biologist.

  Shortly after the Irish adventure in Dingle Bay, another Kraken of vast size ventured onto some rocks off the Norwegian coast, failed to free itself, and died there in 1680. Contemporary accounts said that the stench from its decaying carcass cleared the area for miles around more effectively than any fear of it while alive might have done.

  Another Kraken spotter was the famous Hans Egede. He was born on January 31, 1686, at Harrestad in Norway. He took a bachelor of theology degree at the University of Copenhagen in 1705 and was greatly influenced by the then-popular religious movement known as Pietism. (It is necessary to understand Egede’s character and faith in order to evaluate his evidence. He seems to have been a man of great intelligence and integrity, which makes him a highly reliable reporter.) The Pietists advocated intensive Bible study and believed that priesthood was universal among Christian believers, which meant that the laity should have an equal share in Church government. Pietists also believed that Christian practice of goodness and kindness in everyday life was essential, and that instead of criticizing those with different beliefs, or with no beliefs at all, the Church should do all it could to help them and make them welcome. Pietists also wanted to reorganize the universities and give religion in them a higher priority. In addition, they wanted to revolutionize preaching so that it concentrated on building people up and increasing their faith.

  At the age of thirty-five, in 1721, Egede went to work in Greenland as a missionary and stayed there for fifteen years. In 1734 he reported a “Kraken” seen in the Greenland area. Egede said that it was so vast that when it came up out of the water it reared up as high as the top of the mainmast and that it was of about the same girth as the ship — and several times longer. He described its broad “paws” and long, pointed snout. He said that the ragged, uneven skin of the huge body seemed to be covered in shells. Assuming Egede was making an accurate report, could these have been barnacles?

  Johan Streenstrup, a Danish researcher, found evidence of a beached Kraken going back to Iceland in 1639. He lectured on his findings to the Society of Scandinavian Naturalists in 1847 and later backed up his archival evidence with parts of specimens washed up in Jutland. He gave his discovered “Kraken” the scientific name Architeuthis, which has stayed with it ever since. Recent scientific studies of Architeuthis describe it as having a probable maximum length of twenty metres and a body mass of approximately one tonne. It lives at an average depth of about six hundred metres, and its diet seems to be fish and smaller squids. The eyes are among the largest found in any living creature — up to thirty centimetres across. Study of the brain has been limited because of the rarity of specimens available for examination, but what scientists have learned is rather disconcerting: the brain appears to be very large and complex. The Architeuthis’s funnel is an amazing, all-purpose organ capable of producing a powerful jet, expelling eggs, squirting defensive ink, breathing, and waste disposal!

  Nondescript monsters — Krakens or otherwise — made several appearances along the eastern seaboard of Canada and the U.S. in the early years of the nineteenth century. In June 1815, to cite just one widely publicized example, something over thirty metres long and proudly displaying a series of the traditional undulating humps was seen ploughing its way southwards through Gloucester Bay. Its head was described as equine.

  Bostonian Sam Cabot saw a member of the same species — or the same one that had caused the disturbance in Gloucester Bay — when he was in Nahant in 1816. The one he saw also had a horse-like head and undulating humps. Sam thought it was about thirty metres long. The following year another very confident expert witness had a high-quality telescope with him and said that the horse-headed marine creature he saw through it was definitely not a whale or an enormous member of the dolphin family. He was adamant that nothing he had ever seen among the giant cetaceans had an undulating back like the marine beast of Nahant.

  Nova Scotia also made many contributions to the history of eastern seaboard monster sightings during this period. One typical case involved two men from Peggy’s Cove who were out fishing: John Bockner and his teacher friend, James Wilson. They later reported their encounter with a sea serpent in St. Margaret’s Bay to the Reverend John Ambrose, who subsequently saw one himself and contributed a scientific paper to the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural Sciences. Among Rev. Ambrose’s accounts was an episode that took place in 1849 involving Joseph Holland, Jacob Keddy, and two of their colleagues. On South West Island on the west side of the entrance to St. Margaret’s Bay, they observed something like a gigantic sea snake propelling itself through the water not far from the shore. They launched a boat to get a better view of it and managed to get close to it, apparently without being seen by it. The men said that it was eel-like. They were close enough to see that its huge body was covered in scales, each about fifteen centimetres long by seven or eight centimetres wide. The longer part of t
he scales pointed along the length of the sea serpent’s body, which was black in colour. When the monster became aware of the observers’ boat, it turned towards them and opened its huge jaws. The witnesses were close enough to see its great teeth all too distinctly, and decided to row as fast as they could towards the shore.

  After this narrow escape in 1849, there were many other sightings in St. Margaret’s Bay. Some of the men who had observed at least one of the sea serpents closely wondered whether there were two at least, and perhaps they were a breeding pair.

  Ten years later, in 1855, something in the sea off Green Harbour was described as “a hideous length of undulating terror,” and more detailed accounts of it published in Ballou’s magazine reported that it made a noise like escaping steam and moved through the water with a series of vertical curves. It was also said to have malevolent eyes protected by bony ridges, and jaws full of dangerous-looking teeth.

  Another important Nova Scotia sighting was not recorded in the Zoologist magazine until 1847, although the events had taken place in 1833. Henry Ince was the ordnance storekeeper at Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the time. He recorded that on May 31 that year he had been one of a party of five on a fishing trip in Mahone Bay, where intriguing Oak Island and its famous unsolved Money Pit mystery is also situated. The morning was cloudy, the wind in the south-southeast and rising. The other four on board were Captain Sullivan, lieutenants Malcolm and MacLachlan from the Rifle Brigade, and Artillery Lieutenant Lyster. They saw what Henry Ince described as “a true and veritable sea-serpent” about thirty metres in length and undulating through the water.

  Another episode occurred on October 26, 1873, when a “Kraken” in the guise of a giant squid attacked two sturdy Canadian fishermen in a small boat in Conception Bay — not noted for the depth of its water. They were just on the north side of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland when the weird marine beast went for them. Lesser men would have succumbed, but the powerful Canadians fought back courageously. They came away victorious and still very much alive — with a severed tentacle as a souvenir. They estimated that, including its tentacles, the beast had been a good fifteen metres long overall, with a three-metre body and a metre-long head.

  Canadian lakes, like Loch Ness in Scotland, are often deep and mysterious, and have been the source of as many monster sightings as the seas and oceans. Geologists frequently make the point that what are now technically lakes may once well have been connected to the sea, later isolated from greater bodies of water by geological upheavals caused by movements of the tectonic plates. Many of these very deep lakes lie between the Rockies and the Pacific, and Lake Okanagan — home of the Ogopogo, also known as Naitaka — is typical of them.

  When filming the episode of Fortean TV that included research into the Ogopogo, co-author Patricia provided a little light relief in her Ogopogo costume, while co-author Lionel was dressed as an RCMP officer for that same episode.

  Co-author Patricia in her Ogopogo costume while filming Fortean TV for U.K. TV’s Channel 4.

  Co-author Lionel in RCMP officer’s uniform while filming the Ogopogo episode for U.K. Channel 4’s Fortean TV.

  Modern interest in Ogopogo or Naitaka sightings dates from 1854, when a traveller was taking horses across Lake Okanagan. In his account of the attack by the aquatic monster, he said it was like being seized by a gigantic hand that was trying to pull him and his horses down under the water. He was powerful and agile enough to fight his way out of the deadly grip of whatever lived in Lake Okanagan, but his horses fell victim to it. Some years later, another traveller, John McDougal, was also crossing the lake with horses when he was attacked in a very similar manner. Once again the man survived, although his horses were lost.

  Another account of a sighting from the later years of the nineteenth century was reported by a timber transporter named Postill in 1880. While the lumber was being worked on and a raft constructed, the Ogopogo was sighted. Postill was certain that whatever lived in the mysterious lake came up out of the depths and watched him working on the raft. In that same year, a woman, Mrs. Allison from Sunnyside, also saw something resembling a huge log floating in the lake — but it was going in the opposite direction from the prevailing wind and current.

  One of the saddest and most sinister episodes recorded in the annals of Lake Okanagan is the unsolved disappearance of powerful swimmer Henry Murdoch, who was practising for a forthcoming marathon. As far as is known, he had planned to swim from the old Eldorado Hotel to the Maud Roxby Bird Sanctuary. His good and trusted friend John Ackland was rowing a pilot boat for him. John took a few moments’ rest and bent forward out of the wind to light a cigarette. In those few seconds, Henry vanished without trace — and despite an intensive police search and two days of dragging the lake for his body he was never seen again. The water in that location was barely three metres deep and beautifully clear — yet of Henry Murdoch there was no sign. It needs to be emphasized that he was a very strong swimmer and a professional lifeguard, so an accident was almost impossible. Unless something very big and powerful had taken him, there was no way to account for his sudden disappearance — but how does that square with the water being clear and barely three metres deep at that point?

  More recently, Ogopogo was described as resembling a telegraph pole with a sheep’s head at one end. He was also said to have had a forked tail, only one-half of which came out of the water as he moved. The Vernon Advertiser dated July 20, 1959, carried an interesting and well-authenticated account of an Ogopogo sighting by R.H. Millar. He had been cruising on the lake at about eight knots when he saw Ogopogo through his binoculars about eighty metres away. He was surprised by its speed, as it was going twice as fast as the ship, making about fifteen or sixteen knots. The snakelike head was only a few centimetres above the water, and Millar noted several undulating humps. He guessed — although he couldn’t see them — that the monster had fins or paddles of some kind underneath.

  Some of the most recently reported sightings from the Gellatly Road area, near the Gellatly Cemetery, suggest that Ogopogo is undoubtedly real, and undoubtedly somewhere in the Okanagan Lake area.

  Very wisely, the Canadian authorities have declared Ogopogo to be a protected species under the Federal Law and Fisheries Act and the Wildlife Act.

  In the early 1930s, when Nessie was hitting the world headlines following various reported sightings in Scotland, British Columbia newspaper editor Archie Willis christened a formidable Canadian sea monster Cadborosaurus — soon to be known as Caddy. Earliest reports of Caddy go back many centuries and cover the sea areas between Alaska and Oregon. Marine biologists and oceanographers have drawn up scientific criteria that point in the direction of something totally real and classifiable inhabiting those waters. Caddies seem to vary in length, with an average of about ten metres, and their bodies are serpentine, like gigantic eels. The head is variously described as resembling a horse or camel — definitely not snake-like or fish-like. The neck is long, and the body adjoining it is either humped or undulating — or perhaps both. There are powerful flippers that must be highly effective, as Caddies have been clocked at well over thirty knots when swimming on the surface.

  The northwest Pacific coast where Caddies are regularly sighted is close to a very, very deep submarine trench where almost anything of any size could live undetected for millions of years. Is Caddy a survivor from the distant past, like the coelacanth? It seems highly likely. He also appears to have close relatives in Wales and Cornwall in the U.K.

  Another monster, Morgawr, was reported off the Cornish coast in 1975 and was closely associated with the work of the famous Doc Shiels and his daughters, who were at that time widely recognized and acknowledged as expert and knowledgeable practitioners of the “Old Religion.”

  The basic physical descriptions of Morgawr, the Cornish sea monster, are very similar to the descriptions of Nessie, Caddy, and other large aquatic beasts reported as broadly resembling plesiosaurs. There are, however, some strange a
nd intriguing metaphysical questions raised by the apparent nexus between Old Religion practitioners and their monster-summoning spells on the one hand, and the reported sightings of monsters subsequent to those “magical works” on the other. In this connection, however, it is wise to remember the importance of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (after this, therefore because of this).

  Lyall Watson, whose scientific theorizing is rigorous, adventurous, and of the highest quality, has also wondered seriously about this possible connection. In his brilliant book The Romeo Error, he argues that certain very gifted people can produce physical effects at a distance — purely by mental power. Watson also wonders whether magnetic flaws in specific locations may assist this process. He conjectures that dragons, elves, fairies, and UFOs may all exist, but that those who say these things are all in the mind might be right, too, because these strange tulpa-type phenomena could be produced at what Watson calls the second, or etheric, level. The aberrant behaviour of these phenomena gives Watson cause to wonder whether they are subject to laws that differ from the laws and principles of the natural sciences as we understand them in the twenty-first century. When psychic or other anomalous phenomena behave in ways that support the theories of those who examine and explore them, Watson suggests that this indicates a degree of influence from the mind of the participant observer over the external phenomena themselves. He feels that if these two ideas could be studied seriously together, they would go some way towards explaining many phenomena that are currently regarded as anomalous.