MARINE MONSTERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 118, 18 April 1934, Page 12

MARINE MONSTERS

RIA'ALS FOR LOCH NESS. TAA'O SEPARATE REPORTS. A shiny black sea-serpent with a bead measuring 2ft, across and a body 65ft. long, is claimed to have been seen by two officers of the Mauretania a recent cruise in the Caribbean Sea. A description and sketch were duly entered in the ship’s log. The men who claim to have seen it are Air S. AV. Moughtin, senior first officer, and Air J. AV. Cuance, senior third officer. The log entry states that 6ft. of the monster’s head was out of water and about 40ft. of its body could be seen.

Reports of another monster to rival the famous Loch Ness specimen have come from the North of England. For some time there has existed a feud between Grimsby and Cleethorpes fishermen. They have suspected one another of interference with their fishing gear. Fish caught on their hooks had been wrenched straight off again, leaving only particles.

Cleethorpes men have been keeping all-night vigil in the hope of catching the offenders. Recently some of them went out to examine the lines and found what they expected—fishy fragments hanging to empty hooks. But they saw also something they had not expected. A fisherman named Kirwan who had been standing in the bows of the boat suddenly gave a shout and fell backwards, pointing over the side of the boat. His companions then saw what they describe as “a huge black shape” moving rapidly away from them in a “terrific swirl” of water. The men think that it may have been a seal but it was much larger than any they have ever seen. Nearly 200 instances are recorded in which sea serpents or monsters are reported to have been seen since the 16th century. In 1848 the officers and crew of H.M.S. Daedalus, in all 110 witnesses, testified to seeing an animal, whose length they swore was nearly 100 ft., which passed close under the ship’s taffrail. Its jaws, they said, full of large jagged teeth, were big enough to hold an upright man. Two years later a fishing party in Ballycotton Bay, County Cork, reported encountering a monster which disgorged a shoal of fish that gave electric shocks when handled.. More recently a serpent of unusually fearsome appearanoe is stated to have stampeded the beach bathers on the shores of Lake Michigan. It disported 40ft. of coiled monstrosity in the shallow waters, said many people, who declared that, it had eyes like saucers and teeth as long and sharp as the tines of a pickaxe. But of all the sea serpent stones, none has yet eclipsed the account published in the 16th century by Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala. He declared. and supported his -story with terrifying drawings, that a. sea serpent visited the Norwegian coast, snatched a few grazing sheep from the cliff tops, and, still unsatisfied, devoured a three-masted schooner complete with deck fittings and cargo, and dressed with a crew of 60 men 1