More Sea Serpents

The other day I mentioned the modern void of Cassie reports here. I also recommended people revisit “All Things Maine” blogger Christopher Dunham good overview of “The Sea Serpents of Mount Desert Island.”

Loren Coleman was kind enough to mention again my post from a year ago on the Sea Serpents of Mount Desert Island. This inspired me to dig up some serpent testimonials of later date, from locations ranging from Biddeford to Vinalhaven and Rockland.

Daily Kennebec Journal, May 26, 1875
Daily Kennebec Journal, Oct. 11, 1879
Daily Kennebec Journal, June 4, 1896
Daily Kennebec Journal, Sept. 16, 1904

His final one contains specific descriptions of a beached “Sea Serpent.” Here’s Chris’ introduction, followed by the text of the story:

Last comes this report of a sea serpent washed ashore near Old Orchard “where thousands are viewing it.”

To be sure it is dead, but far better a real sea serpent dead on the shore than the unverified yarn of a live one out at sea. It came ashore with the tide near Old Orchard and truly it is a monster such as the oldest sea dog never saw before. If it isn’t the sea serpent it is a nearer approach to it than anything the human gaze has ever been permitted to inspect at close range. It came in on the night tide. The monster has long been dead. Of the body there is only a pulp like form enclosed in a grayish colored hide, covered with long hair as big as grass blades. The flesh had been washed away by the action of the sea until the great skull was bare and the monster vertebrae uncovered so that some of them could be removed. The tail is missing, broken short off, and how long this part of the body was can only be speculated upon. To conceive of anything like symmetry of form this tail must have been from 25 to 30 feet long. Minus the tail it measured 42 feet. The big skull terminated in beak shaped jaws which were of flesh. These two jaw bones measure nine feet. Between the jaws was a rough-shaped bone of about the same length which formed a case for the tongue. The animal, when in good condition, must have been of serpentine shape and the body at the deepest point is not over five feet in diameter. Supply the tail to match the body, terminating at the one end in the long snout and you would have a serpent shaped monster from about 70 to 80 feet long with a circumference in the biggest part of not over 12 or 15 feet. Imagine this monster with its head and long beak erect and lashing the sea with its tail and you reproduce the appearance of the fabled sea serpent. the sea has cast up a good many curiosities along the beach at Old Orchard and along the coast of Maine, but never anything like this. [Daily Kennebec Journal, June 12, 1905]

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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