Battle With Sea Serpent
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 9th, 2006
Fishermen Have Battle With Sea Serpent
Long Beach, California — Five men who went fishing yesterday* on the launch Rita assert they had an encounter with a sea serpent at the Grouper banks, eighteen miles off shore. Guy Griffith and James Harvey were of the party.
"The monster was about forty feet long," said Griffith, "and about fifteen feet back from the head it had a big dorsal fin. The head was as big as a barrel and brown with eyes as big as my fist and it moved from side to side. The tail was like that of a porpoise. We first sighted the thing 100 feet away.
"The head was then out of the water and I started to shoot at it, but feared it might become angry and wreck us, so I told one of the boys to start the engine and we glided away but the monster came after us. We gave the engine all she could stand and got away from the creature."
[*Yesterday, in this case, was February 19, 1909, as the story was filed on February 20, 1909.]
Source: Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne Journal Gazette February 21, 1909 Archival research: Jerome Clark
Contemporary Caddy Sculpture Above: Copyright © Jeff Johnson
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I don’t see any reference to serpent. Dorsal fin, “40” feet long, body thick as a barrel, tail like a porpoise, sounds like Megaladon or a 30′ Great White Shark that was exaggerated to 40′.
Also great whites are the only shark known to stop and stick their head out of the water and look at boats.
Well these guys sounds like fisherman and so I think they know what a shark looks like. Hmmmmmmmm, but what did they see?
Killer whale?
I live near the area, you had me sucked in (and excited) there for a moment.
Now back to reality.
Having a tail like a porpoise’s (bilobate) and moving laterally seems to be contradictory, and there are so few details that this story is hardly of any value. Great Whites don’t get 30 feet long, there are stories of them getting that long, but in reality they’re 20 feet maximum (13-16 average). Also, what on earth is with those sensationalistic titles?
You’d have a hard time formulating a description to create more confusion about what this was. Professional fisherman have probably seen what is usually out there, so it’s possible, but not likely, that they mistook this for a known animal.
“serpent” – if the fishermen actually used this term (it isn’t clear from this post) it implies something reptile-like.
“had a big dorsal fin” – implies cetacean or fish
“it moved from side to side” – fish or reptiles swim this way, marine mammals don’t
“tail was like that of a porpoise” – only cetaceans have a tail configuration like this
Cadborosaurus is something that often has mixed characteristics like this, so I guess that’s the most likely suspect. (Which Loren already implied by including the “Caddy” statue.) “Cadborosaurus” looks like its a marine mammal, the “serpent” descriptions seem to result from it being long and thin, so it fits the description pretty well.
why did fisherman in 1909 have guns?
Tuh shoot stuff…
It is an interesting story but that’s about it. Not a lot we can glean from this account. I’d like to see more information not only on the appearance of the animal in question but on other important factors as well, such as visibility, weather conditions, etc. As it is, it’s hard to tell what exactly was going on.
Well they saw something out there.
“why did fisherman in 1909 have guns?”
Until recent times most people that spent any amount of time on the Ocean kept guns with them. There are several reasons why, one being ‘pirates’ another being large sharks.
The fellow down the road from me used to shark fish a good bit in the Gulf. He told me that they never went out without at least two guns. One was a backup. However for some silly reason the law was changed in Florida. You are not allowed to have a gun on your boat any longer, but you can carry one in your car.
Go figure.
I think that many sea serpents could be sea dragons look at the head and face very similar to the look, plus 40 ft in length, that’s just about right.
I wouldn’t be so sure that great whites only reach 20′ in length.
That’s ’cause no one has ever caught one over 20 feet so far.
They obyiously compared it to known animals, and I’m thinking large fish with water distortions and the 100′ distance causing confusion as to the tail, or a large marine mammal with the motion of water causing confusion as to the mode of locomotion.
Am I the only one thinking this was a Basking Shark? Brown, 40 ft long, dorsal fin, it all fits! These placid sharks will often be spotted “basking” near the ocean’s surface and were (are) commonly mistaken for “sea serpents.” Almost the size of the Whale Shark, the Basking Shark is a filter feeder, just as the Whale Shark and many whales. I’m not saying there aren’t unknown sea creatures out there, but this does sound like a Basking Shark.
Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharodon) may not get to be 30 feet long, but I believe that Carcharodon Megladon, believed to be extinct, was about that size or bigger.
Great White Shark up to 23 Ft.