Did Loch Ness Monster Have A Brother ?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 169, 22 July 1935, Page 10

Did Loch Ness Monster Have A Brother ?

FOUR-TON SEA CREATURE IS SHOT OFF GALWAY COAST. Had the Loch Ness monster a brother/ A strange creature 49ft long, with a circumference of 26ft, was shot half u mile from Galway Harbour recently, and lying on the beach attracted thousands of people from far and near. Estimates of the Loch Ness monster have been that it is 20 to 30ft. long. The Galway creature was seen swimming slowly round the bay through a period of 10 days, and fishermen had become alarmed because their nets w r ere being constantly destroyed. John Crowley, the keeper of Mutton Island Lighthouse, while cleaning <me lamps, noticed a dark, massive object moving close to the surface of the water about 150 yards away and causing a wave as it moved. He dashed to his rifle, and by the time he levelled it the monster was about 100 yards away. He is a fine shot, and live times he fired into he monster’s head. The creature gave a terrific wriggle, leapt a couple of feet into the air, and then fell into the water with an enormous splash. It then gave another convulsive movement before lying still on the sea. Mr Crowley called for assistance, and the carcase was towed on to the beach. Experienced fishermen around the coast and officials of Gaiway Harbour arc mystified. Men who have spent more than half a century on the sea said they had never heard of or seen anything like it before. These men said that the monster was neither of the whale nor the shark species. It had no blowhole in the head, but there was a fin on the body, similar to the dorsal fin of the shark. Mr. T. Tierney, harbourmaster of Galway, said: “I. have never seen anything like it in my experience of the sea. H probably belongs to the same species as the Loch Ness monster.” When a Daily Mail reporter read the description of the monster to the Keeper and Deputy Keeper of Zoology at, the Natural History Museum, South Ken sington, they both inclined to the theory that it was some Species of shark. Dr. W. T. Caiman the keeper, said: “It may be a basking shark, a creature which is common off the Isles of Aran, but I should have thought that the Galway fishermen would be well’ acquainted with this species and would recognise one if they saw il.” Mr Martin A. C. Hinton, deputykeeper, stated: ‘‘JI sounds like some big type of shark. I do not think it is heavy enough for a whale. In any ■ ase a whale would have a blow hole.”