February 1, 2007
Recently in response to my blog about the San Francisco Bay Sea Serpent, one comment maker wrote in to mention this news item:
By now everyone who is connected by radio, tv, internet or newspaper is aware that James Gray of Microsoft has just disappeared from the face of the earth while expertly sailing his 40ft sailboat on a day cruise under nearly perfect condition, through very well known waters, to the Farallon Islands. Speculation as to his whereabouts is wide-open and even the most serious and likely suggestions underscore just how slight is the ability of our human perceptions to be able to actually see what’s going-on around us. The idea that there can’t be something previously unknown on the order of a large animal living out in waters all around us because if it were there we’d have seen it and photographed it…well, that greatly overestimates our powers of observation, not to mention our ability to photograph stuff.– dogu4
I am in no way endorsing any connection between this California coastal disappearance and any assumed behavior of Pacific Ocean Sea Serpents, but open-minded attention to data is usually a good idea. Here’s more information on the James Gray story from Boing Boing:
Database pioneer James Gray, winner of the 1998 Turing Award and founder of Microsoft’s Bay Area Research Center, is missing off the coast of Northern California. On Sunday [January 28, 2007], he set out alone on his 40-foot sailboat to the Farallon Islands where he intended to scatter his late mother’s ashes. He hasn’t returned. The US Coast Guard is searching for Gray by boat, plane, and helicopter. Gray is known for such groundbreaking projects as the SkyServer and TerraServer. – David Pescovitz
For the Boing Boing post on Gray’s disappearance, click here.
For more on this topic, in general, see:Death by Sea Serpent?
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.
Filed under Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Sea Serpents