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Cryptids

The Legend Of The Honey Island Swamp Monster

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Just a short drive from New Orleans, Louisiana are many acres of swamp land deep in the Honey Island Swamp that are said to be as uncorrupted, primitive, and untouched by man as anywhere in America.

It is for this very reason that some say it may actually be possible for a creature to live in these parts and go unnoticed by humans…well almost unnoticed.
The first documented sighting of the mysterious creature in this area took place in early August of 1963. Harlan Ford, a retired air traffic controller, and his friend Billy Mills came home from the swamp with an incredible story.
The pair of veteran hunters claimed that while out in the swamps they came across a large creature standing over the body of a dead boar. The strange creature had apparently ripped the boar’s throat completely out.
Harlan described the creature as being covered in dingy grey hair, with longer hair hanging from its head. The two estimated the creature weighed close to 400 pounds and stood about 7 feet tall.
The creature’s enormous size and hair was frightening enough, but the amber colored eyes and horrible stench that reeked from the creature were the two things that stuck in Harlan and Billy’s mind from this unbelievable encounter.
Back at home Harlan told his family about the encounter, he said, “It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Ugly and sinister and looking like something out of a horror movie. It swung around and looked at us for a moment, then tore off into the swamp. I want you to know it scared the heck out of me!”
A cast of the imprint made by the Honey Island Swamp Monster.
From Harlan’s description, the monster is seven feet tall. Its legs are slender but its chest and shoulders were huge and it had long grayish hair on its head and short dingy gray hair on its body.
It also had unusual eyes, Harlan said, “They were very large and amber colored and looked hard at us before running off.” Harlan was an honest man and didn’t care if people believed him or not.
While news of this story spread like wildfire, the locals knew that stories of this ferocious creature go back hundreds of years. The Native Americans of the area called the creature Letiche, and described it as meat eating, human-like creature that lived in the water and on the land.
The Indians from this area believed that the swamp monster was once an abandoned child who was raised by alligators in the deep dark regions of the swamp. Cajuns called the creature Loup Carou, which some say means werewolf.
Some researchers believe that the Honey Island Swamp Monster is related to Bigfoot. While the body size and description is very similar, the tracks found in and around Honey Island Swamp do not resemble tracks collected in the Pacific North West.
They are 4 and sometimes 3 toed, much like tracks discovered in southeastern Texas and parts of Florida. Casts made by Harland Ford are about ten to twelve inches long, and have three long thin toes set next to each other and a fourth set back on the inside, rather like a thumb.
Ted Williams lived on the bayou most of his life. He was a trapper and worked on the swampland every day. Ted claimed to have seen the creature many times, and he knew there was more than just one of them.
He said, “I could have killed them, but I didn’t cause they didn’t seem to want to harm me. I’d see them swimming the river and get out on the bank then dissappear in the swamp.”
One day while fishing one crossed the river and walked right past him. One day Ted took his boat deep in the swamp to set trout lines. He was never seen again. No one has ever found him or his boat.
Today, the creature is still purported to inhabit the swamp and the bayous along the Peal River. Local lore tells of a train crash that occurred near the swamp in the early 20th century in which a traveling circus lost chimpanzees who adapted to the environment and offer a potential explanation as to the creature’s origins.
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The Serpent of Gloucester, Massachusetts

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An artist’s interpretation of the Serpent of Gloucester. Image: Wikipedia

In August 1817, the skipper of a trading ship entering Gloucester Harbour, Massachusetts, witnessed a baffling 60-foot long, leathery sea creature. This spectacle birthed the story of the Serpent of Gloucester.

The Sightings of the Serpent of Gloucester

In August 1817, a ship was sailing into Gloucester Harbour, Massachusetts. All of a sudden, the boat’s captain saw something weird in the rough sea that he couldn’t explain. It was a huge creature in the water, 60 feet long, with humps on its back. It was black, shiny like silver, and its skin looked like leather.

It moved like a snake and had a massive snake-like head with dark eyes. The captain was shocked. He couldn’t tell if it was a dream or real. He rushed to tell other sailors about this incredible story. To his surprise, they also claimed to have seen the monster.

James Mansfield, who saw the creature, said its head was about the size of a hat’s top. Another person, Solomon Allen III, said the creature’s head was like a rattlesnake’s but almost as big as a horse’s. Sewall Toppan, a boat captain, said he had never seen a fish like this creature in all his years at sea.

Everyone in Gloucester was scared. They respected the sea and knew it held many secrets, but this was different and frightening. Before the boat’s captain saw the creature, two women claimed they saw a similar ‘monster’ in a harbor north of Gloucester. Although most people didn’t believe them, some sailors said they saw the creature too. Then, Amos Story, a sailor, claimed he saw a ‘monster’ from the shore. More and more people claimed they saw the creature, making it seem real. It looked like there was something strange in the sea that didn’t belong to this world.

Hysteria about the Serpent Sweeps Gloucester

Soon, there was a frightened buzz growing in Massachusetts, due to something strange arriving. What made it weird was that the fishermen, who knew the sea best, also saw this monster. Gloucester was America’s oldest fishing port, and its fishermen had all the knowledge passed down from their ancestors. They had seen everything in the ocean. But this monster? It was something new for them. If these expert fishermen couldn’t figure out what it was, who could? The monster seemed to be teasing them, right under their noses.

The local gossip in Gloucester was full of guesses about the monster. It was the hot topic at the harbor. Local newspapers were packed with stories and accounts of this odd creature, often with headlines like ‘Monstrous Serpent’ and other dramatic phrases. Before long, Gloucester was swamped with tourists. The ferries were packed with eager visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the serpent. They all wanted to see this monster.

“200 people saw the serpent at once, playing around all afternoon,” said David Humphreys, a former aide-de-camp for George Washington. There were even claims that the monster was seen as far as Long Island Sound off the coast of Connecticut, 160 miles to the south. As expected, a big cash prize was offered to anyone who could catch the creature.

The Hunt for the Gloucester Serpent

The Folklorist covers the story of the Gloucester Serpent

Fishermen, whalers, and people hoping to make some money crowded Gloucester’s harbor trying to spot and catch the big sea creature. They used nets and shark hooks as traps. Many people, including locals, camped by the sea, keeping a close watch for the creature. Some even searched the beaches for large eggs that might have been laid by the sea serpent. There was even a big shed built in Boston to show off the captured sea creature, a symbol of pride for Massachusetts.

They didn’t want it alive. They wanted it dead because they were afraid of it. The New England Linnaean Society of Boston eagerly awaited a sample as more and more people told their own stories.

Then one day, Matthew Gaffney, a carpenter on a ship, saw the creature and shot at it with a musket. He shot it in the head twice, but it seemed to have no effect. The creature quickly vanished, only to reappear a little later. But it got dark, and they lost sight of it.

Later, a farmer near Cape Ann found a four-foot-long snake swimming near the shore and killed it with a pitchfork. He took the snake to the Linnaean Society, who cut it open and decided that it must be the baby of the big sea creature. No one knows how they made that decision. They named it ‘Scoliophis,’ a new kind of snake that means ‘humped snake’ in Latin. They gave the creature the scientific name, ‘Scoliophis atlanticus’. But this victory was short-lived. A French naturalist later showed that the ‘baby of the big sea creature’ was just a common black snake that was sick.

Theories about the Identity of the Serpent of Gloucester

The people of Gloucester definitely saw something that caused a huge stir. That much we can confirm. What it was exactly is anyones guess. Sea serpents were definitely in our oceans during the time of the dinosaurs and, like other deep-sea monsters such as the Loch Ness Monster, some have suggested that the Gloucester serpent might be a creature that escaped extinction.

This idea might not be as crazy as it sounds. Sea snakes, some as long as 10 feet, live in the ocean today. While that’s smaller than the Gloucester monster, most people now think that the monster was an actual animal that was misidentified. Back in the early 1800s, most animals from other parts of the world would seem really weird. Many thought the monster was simply mistaken for something else, and experts at the time did their best to explain it.

Naturalist Constantin Rafinesque said it was a real sea snake, while others thought it was some kind of whale. The creature didn’t move side to side like a reptile, but up and down like a sea mammal. It’s pretty common for people to see a snake-like shape when looking at a group of whales or dolphins. Some even thought it might be a narwhal, which can grow really big. Maybe a large group was seen off the coast of Massachusetts and mistaken for the monster. After all, some people said they saw a ‘long, pointed prong or spear’ sticking out two feet from its head.

The creature’s behavior was similar to a narwhal, often staying still for hours near the shore. Its size was also similar to a narwhal, and most people said it was ‘dark’ on the top and ‘nearly white’ on the bottom, just like a narwhal. Many people also said the creature would ‘dive straight down without twisting its body at all,’ swim really fast, and wasn’t aggressive, all behaviors that are common with narwhals. People’s descriptions of the creature varied a lot, but many of them saw it at night, during storms, or from really far away, with one person looking through a telescope a quarter mile away.

This could explain why there haven’t been any sightings in the last century. Whale and narwhal populations are going down because they’re the animals most affected by climate change.

Investigator Richard Ellis once asked, “Shall we assume that hundreds of reputable citizens were deluded or victims of mass hysteria?” They saw something out in the vast ocean, something they couldn’t explain. Maybe we’ll never know for sure what the creature was.

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Cryptids

The Hook Island Sea Monster

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The Hook Island Sea Monster spotted in Australia’s Whitsundays

In December 1964, a man named Robert Le Serrec witnessed a 75-80ft long creature underwater near Hook Island, Queensland.

The Story of the Hook Island Sea Monster

The location where the Hook Island Monster was spotted.

In a news release that revisits a decades-old mystery, we cast our minds back to the mid-60s and journey to Stonehaven Bay, Hook Island, Queensland, Australia. Here, the seemingly serene waters once revealed a creature of gargantuan proportions that bore an uncanny resemblance to a tadpole of truly monstrous scale.

It was December 1964, when French native, Robert Le Serrec, along with his family and shiphand, purportedly encountered the aquatic leviathan. The family, new owners of a motorboat, had decided to set anchor for several months in the vicinity of Hook Island. On December 12th, as they navigated across the bay, the first sight of the creature emerged.

EDGE Science covers the tale of the Hook Island Sea Monster

Robert’s wife first noticed a strange anomaly, enormous in size and tadpole-like in shape, lurking at the bottom of the lagoon. Instantly intrigued, they wasted no time in documenting the encounter. Armed with their camera, they started snapping pictures. The ship’s hand, de Jong, plucked up the courage to submerge himself in the water to capture a closer look at the beast.

Initially mistaking the creature for a deceased specimen, owing to its monumental length of 75-80ft, they soon discovered they were wrong. As Le Serrec moved in closer to film, the beast startled them by opening its mouth and making a beeline towards them. A frantic retreat back to the boat ensued, by which point, the creature had made a hasty exit.

Eyewitnesses aboard reported seeing an injury on the creature’s right flank. The assumption was made that the wound could have been inflicted by a ship’s propeller, prompting the creature to seek solace in the shallow lagoon. Its unusual physical features, including eyes on the top of its head and a smooth, finless body, raised eyebrows amongst skeptics. Some argued that it was an elaborate hoax, perhaps a clever camera angle of a large school of fish, or an ingeniously manipulated image – though such theories seemed far-fetched given the photographic technology of the 60s.

Theories about the Hook Island Sea Monster

More photos of the Hook Island Sea Monster

Optimistic yet rational believers hypothesized that the creature could be a gigantic version of a swamp eel from the Synbranchidae family, despite these eels typically not exceeding 150cm in size. Others conjectured that it might be an artificially constructed, monster-shaped sheet of plastic.

A comprehensive and meticulous report by Darren Naish, published in Scientific American, has argued that the incident was a hoax. He pointed out that in 1959, Le Serrec had planned an expedition with the promise of it being “financially fruitful”, with a vague hint of a sea-serpent related endeavor that would rake in substantial money. To add to the skepticism, the film supposedly capturing the creature was not very clear or convincing.

Do you think the Hook Island Sea Monster was real or a hoax? Tell us your theory in the comments.

If you enjoyed learning about the Hook Island Sea Monster you might also be interested in a sea monster attack that killed four teens or the story of Tessie, Lake Tahoe’s Nessie.

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