August in the North Atlantic: Sea Serpents and Merbeings

SHEDIAC, N.B., Aug. 26. — Five reliable fishermen report seeing a sea serpent off Richibacto shore. It was two hundred feet long, about as thick as a man’s body, had a flat shaped head with eyes on the top like a frog. It resembled a snake and sometimes raised its head six feet out of the water, and its body curved like an immense hawser. They were near enough to see scales on its body and were in view of it for an hour.

An amusing and detailed account of a merman seen in the Atlantic, written apparently in good faith, ends with the following description of the monster, which may possibly have been a seal or a sea lion: “That monster is about eight feet long, his skin is brown and tawny, without any scales, all his motions are like those of men, the eyes of a proportionate size, a little mouth, a large and flat nose, very white teeth, black hair, the chin covered with a mossy beard, a sort of whiskers under the nose, the ears like those of men, [illegible] between the fingers of his hands and feet like those of ducks. In a word, he is a well shaped man. Which is certified to be true by Captain Oliver Morin and John Martin, pilot, and by the whole crew, consisting of two-and-thirty men.” (An article from Brest in the “Memoirs of Trevoux.”) This monster was mentioned in The Gazette of Amsterdam Oct. 12, 1725, where it is said it was seen in the ocean in August of the same year. — Household Words.

Thanks to Mia B. Smith, Permissions Coordinator at American Scientist, who informs me the copyright credit for this illustration is Bill Long, 2005.

Loren Coleman 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.

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