Mystery Photos: Sea Serpent or Plesiosaur? Name That Carcass!
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on September 4th, 2006
With all of the plesiosaur talk here on Cryptomundo these days, and with many new readers in the last several months, I wanted to bring back a subject that was explored here on Cryptomundo last February.
I was given permission to repost photos that were taken by a gentleman named Michael Cenedella.
One day in June, about 1990, my friend Joanne Rauch and I hiked along the central Oregon coast at Cape Meares. We soon spotted a large object on the beach.
I took the pictures, but I can’t remember which camera I used at the time. I believe it was a Minolta 35mm point and shoot.
I paced the length of the "sea serpent" – 13 paces, approximately 33 feet since my pace at the time was a bit over 2.5 feet.
If the bent leg points to the head, the head was missing as far as I could tell, chewed or screwed off by a propeller, or perhaps rotted away.
Unfortunately, some liquid spilled on some of the pictures and efforts to clean them resulted in minimal damage. When that happened, I stopped my efforts to clean the photos. Somewhere in the house I have the negatives and when I get them, I’ll developed them and make better scans.
I called the Hatfield Marine Science center (Newport, OR) and described what we’d seen. Their best suggestion was that this is a gray whale, despite the tapering neck and tail. One woman suggested the bent flipper might be a grotesque penis. She didn’t see the pictures.
I’ve hiked the wilderness strip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a couple of hundred miles north of Cape Mears, and seen 4 dead gray whales over the years. None looked remotely like this-the grays don’t taper nearly so much at the tail and don’t taper at all at the head. The heads are massive.
What the heck is this thing???
General view with Joanne in the background
Click photo above to view full-size
The Beastie’s body
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The Beastie’s other side
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The Beastie’s curious appendage
Click photo above to view full-size
Click photo above to view full-size
Click photo above to view full-size
Photos copyright Michael Cenedella and are posted with his written consent. Mr. Cenedella upon research, believes the beastie to be a gray whale.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
is it tapered? or just partially buried in sand? the sand looks mounded up around it.
if it is a whale, the appendage could very well be a penis (try googling ‘whale penis’), but looks a bit off center?
I could have sworn that these pictures were posted here on Crytpomundo before. If not, I’ve seen them somewhere else.
I’m pretty confident that this is a whale of some kind. The so-called “curious appendage” appears to be the whale’s penis. It looks to be in the right position and has the same characteristics of a whale penis. They are sometimes visible on dead whales, as in this example.
The tail looks quite unlike that of a whale, but it is hard to determine how much has decomposed and how much has been buried by the sand.
Scarfe, hence the first paragraph:
With all of the plesiosaur talk here on Cryptomundo these days, and with many new readers in the last several months, I wanted to bring back a subject that was explored here on Cryptomundo last February.
Half buried grey (or some other) whale – not much of a mystery here!
It’s a whale – a male whale. The flipper shape would be the easiest way to identify which species, but it is only in one image, and at a distance too, so it’s hard to tell if it’s the shape it is from decay or not. Still, it’s most likely, from the size described, to be a sperm whale. That would be consistent with the fact that the exposed part is about 30′, leaving another 15+ feet of buried head and tale. Most baleen whales (Blues, Humpbacks, etc.) would have lots of throat grooves showing in the pictures. The exceptions would be Gray Whales, which are considered large if they are over 40′, and and Right Whales, which have white marking underneath, and massive heads.
Seems appropriate somehow, if it IS a Sperm Whale, what with the fascination with its additional “flipper”.
am i the only one finding humor in ‘Click photo above to view full-size’??? its scary enough as is.
The tail doesn’t look very whale like to me…
While a whale does seem to be the most likely explanation I’m not sure that this one should be so easily dismissed just yet.
I remember this story. Here we go again, another what is the animal mystery. I’m really not sure on this one.
I will tell you one thing that body sure is different. Color on the animal has me baffled.
When this story was posted several months ago, I still wasn’t sure what that animal is.
Maybe a prehistoric animal, perhaps or a zeuglodon.
It does have a lizard like appearance, but I will let all of you judge this one. I will keep looking at the pictures to get a better idea. I wish the head was still attached to the body. Would like to see what it looks like?
Another debate maybe on this one, the tail is awfully long, also looks like it has a hump on its back or scale.
After studying the photos for a few moments, it occured to me that I was staring at something definitely penile on whatever it was, that’s no extra flipper!
Wow, impressive pictures. Not all of us here are Whale savvy! If I had been the one who happened upon this corpse, I would have thought I found some sea creature!
Kewl pictures Mr. Woolheater, thanks for reposting them again for us newer members!
This may be a whale or large pinniped. It looks to me that the appendage is not a penis, but a fetus. One lobe of the tail is folded back on the other lobe. It looks like the mother died in the act of giving birth…perhaps because the baby was a breech baby.
Um…this site is getting a little “blue” for me. Suddenly everyone is an expert on whale genitalia! Hahahaha. Anyway, it’s a whale. Nothing from the Jurassic, nothing from a Japanese monster movie…just a whale…I think.
Swamp gas…Venus….blubbersaurus…
too beadeyed to see…
ole bub and the dawgs
For some reason, it looks like someone tried to cover the whales head in sand. I looked up some stuff online and came to the conclusion, for me at least, that it’s a whale. And, if I can figure it out, I’m sure someone with a background in biology or related subject can verfiy it.
A semi rotted Basking Shark
My first thought was a basking shark, but then after looking closer I think that it might be mammalian, that is most likely a whale of some sort.
Whale or not, the person who took these pictures did what everyone should do, called someone to take a look. And they responded exactly the way they usually do, give a guess and that’s it. What if this was some dinosaur? Think about what that would do for someone’s carrier. Unfortunately here in America there isn’t enough funding for them to drive to every whale washed up on shore. Even if this was an unknown whale, every carcass should be looked at, at the very least.
After looking at these again. I am not sure what it is.
Well if I ever came across something that I wasnt sure of I would take as many pictures as I could from every angle with size comparisons. I would also try to collect bone and skin tissue or perhaps the skull if it was possible to do so. If no one else would do anything then I sure as heck would. Would you not risk ridicule to make the scientific discovery of the century and therein by discovering a legend become a legend yourself?
Whatever it is, I think it died giving birth. I am with Savage30L on this one.
Aren’t all cetacean ‘babies’ breech birth?
And at 1/4 to 1/3 the mother’s size I’d expect a newborn to be much bigger than that.
If that is indeed a whale I’d doubt that the appendage is a fetus.
It is a whale, and that is a penis. What is more interesting is the series of somewhat circular wounds just in front of the genital area.
A lot of animals could have large genetalia. Trying to keep from snickering as I write this. Seriously though, I’ve mentioned in a previous post about the idea that some of these animals that appear to be whales, but not quite, could be a result of “convergent evolution”. Some animals are going to evolve along similar lines in order to fit a specific ecological niche. Nature comes up with similar solutions for similar problems. Sharks and dolphins are totally different creatures, yet retain the same type of form and contours in order to survive in a specific niche. Although I believe this to be a whale, it could very well be an animal that has adapted to a similar environment and thus could look quite reminiscent of a whale, especially when decomposed. Just a thought.
The circle wounds are indeed intriguing.
Sucker marks from a giant squid?
“…Sucker marks from a giant squid?..”
No, bullet holes from an automatic 30-caliber weapon.
Russian or Chinese, probably.
Less likely, but possible, some Yahoos roaming down the beach with a .44 magnum.
In my experience, even a .50 calibre pumpkin ball leaves a pretty small entrance wound and a wicked exit wound where the bullet deforms on impact. If those are from a bullet that didn’t pass all the way through the whale those are some awfully big entrance wounds (of course there could be smaller holes I can’t see on the other side of this and those are exit wounds), but looking at it closer, and blown up, they do look a bit jagged around the edges, so you are probably right about the gunshot.
I stand corrected.
From first glance I automatically believed this was indeed a sea creature from the creatacious period but I’ve only come across this dinosaurs having 4 fins and here it seems as if this creature has only two. On that note, this is infact NOT a WHALE. Whales have large fan-like tales and this thing doesn’t. Plus a long neck? Yeah people, what whale has a long, lean neck? As a result, I believe either way, that this is infact a discovery on some level!
ARRGH!!
Even whale genitalia is on the centerline of the body! The long, tapered part is the tail, not the neck. After further research I have withdrawn my pliosaur conclusion and suggested a placement firmly in the Squamata. The dimunitive rear flipper, long tail, stout head, barrel-chest, and powerful front flippers suggest a close relation to the largest mosasaur to have ever lived, Hainosaurus. This racks it up to 2 CryptoMundo mosasaurs so far; the Mystery Fish and this.