MonsterQuest Water Mystery Solved
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 15th, 2010
Manatee with 3 pronged tail. Credit: FWC
PALM BEACH, Florida — Florida Fish and Wildlife biologists believe that the cold weather has helped to uncover a local mystery; the identity of the mysterious sea monster featured on the TV show MonsterQuest which airs on the History Channel.
As hundreds of manatees huddled to stay warm inside the channel of the Florida Power and Light Riviera Beach Power Plant, one of the gentle sea cows stood out due to a distinct feature of its anatomy.
Thought to have been injured by a boat propeller at some point in its life, the manatee’s tail grew back into three separate prongs.
Due to the unusual shape, the manatee leaves three separate wakes on the water’s surface while swimming just below.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission believes that this is the source of the sea creature shown during a segment last year on Monsterquest.
The origin of last year’s other sensational underwater story remains a mystery.
A strange creature dubbed the ‘Muck Monster’ created strange wake patterns on the surface of the Lake Worth Lagoon.
Credit: MonsterQuest: Florida’s Cold Weather Reveals Manatee With Strange Tail, January 11, 2010.
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’m pretty sure they covered that theory on the episode regarding this creature/monster. Wasn’t the video that showed the unusual head of the creature the most interesting part of the episode?
Okay, I’ve got the same gripe I had with the show, the tail pictured above does not equate with the images on the video.
The images in the video depicted a tail that was finned in three segments, but the three segments were pointed at the end, tapered to a point on each part. AND, the tail itself jutting above the water did not look rounded like a manatee’s tail.
That is why I have such a hard time with the manatee theory. Manatee tails are rounded, and even when cut by boat propellers, you can still see the rounded-ness of the tail.
So, to sum up, I don’t buy the manatee explanation at this point–doesn’t mean it categorically isn’t–the footage doesn’t give enough info to say what is going on with that odd looking tail, but the book is not closed on this one for me.
I am usually the first to cry foul but cloud is right , this does nor resemble the tri tailed creatures tail that was shown on the history channel , also the head they show was clearly from the seal family, I think we are looking at two very different animals.
I’ll agree with the above comments; the trilobed fin I saw on that segment of Monsterquest was far too symmetrical and tapered too evenly on both of the outer fins to be a wound. Also, as Between notes, the head in that film segment was not that of a manatee. I’m a certified scuba diver and have swum with manatees; the creature in that film segment wasn’t a manatee.
Sorry, I meant “Inbetween”. Fingers were moving too fast.
I have to agree with the other posters here, Loren. The creature in the video on MQ had perfectly SYMMETRICAL, trident-shaped fins, not like this one.
Are we supposed to believe that boat propellers are guided by a random force that SOMEHOW manages to cut a Manattee’s tail into three perfectly symmetrical, even sections so that it looks like a trident???
I don’t think so. Sorry. Plus as stated above, the head did not totally conform to Mannattee “configurations.”
Yet another example of lazy scientific dismissal by the Mainstream Establishment.
Cryptidsrus, I am in complete agreement with you. From an evidentiary standpoint, the story’s assertion that the mystery is solved is akin to the MSM’s broad brush dismissal of Bigfoot as a hoax courtesy of Ray Wallace.
I still believe it was a manatee in the Monsterquest film, mostly because it was within a group of other manatees. Yes, the head did appear to be pinniped in one portion of the film, but that could easily be because the manatee facial features are so flexible and change according to the mammals activity.
There are more than one mutilated manatee in the Florida waters, there are hundreds.
A couple of them could have been intentionally mutilated by a sadistic human or group of humans wanting to
create just this kind of news attention. They may have been more artistic than a boat propellor.
I also think the Monsterquest knew full well that they were filming a manatee and obscured or did not show film that would have proved this. Just like they knew from the beginning of the Devil Fish of Baja segment that it was a whale shark they were hunting. They just waited until the last 5 minutes of the show to finally
reveal it, to keep us watching.
If you wonder what beast of a human ilk might be so cruel as intentionally to mutilate a manatee.
Read this article:
http://www.savethemanatee.org/news_pr_mutilation_11-06.html
“Are we supposed to believe that boat propellers are guided by a random force that SOMEHOW manages to cut a Manattee’s tail into three perfectly symmetrical, even sections so that it looks like a trident???”
Constant speed of propeller… constant speed of manatee… even cuts… I don’t see where mysterious forces are really required.
“Yet another example of lazy scientific dismissal by the Mainstream Establishment.”
It’s neither lazy nor a dismissal. It’s genuine scientific research and the proposal of a new hypothesis to explain observations. This shows that there could be a more mundane explanation for the MQ imagery than a novel new species, and more evidence would be required to bolster the idea of a new species in this area.
Alcalde:
To be honest, you may accept that, but I respectfully cannot.
There’s coincidence, and then there’s coincidence bordering on impossibility. MY opinion, as always.
These were perfect cuts. Nothing uneven. Its almost as if the “finished product” was deliberately made.
Many will believe that “Randomness and Circumstances” were enough to do the trick here. I do not believe that.
Of course, you see it differently. That is fine. Cryptomundo accomodates a lot of views. I just think this is too “perfect” for this to be made by “propellers.”
Another thing, Alcalde:
What about the shape of the head??? Which some in the episode have said is NOT Mannattee-like???
And the fact that some folks have stated (including, I think, the eyewitness) that this was TOO fast to be a Manattee???