CONVINCINGLY OBVIOUS?
So far, all the accounts we have studied are tantalisingly frustrating. On the whole they seem to describe very seal like creatures but although they could represent a long necked form of this species, it is also possible that they may be cases of mistaken identity, sightings of unusual or unfamiliar pinnipeds. Many people already have a mental picture of how a seal should look and when confronted with a pinniped such a lurching elephant seal or marauding leopard seal, may feel that they are indeed witnessing an unknown animal.
However, in this part of the work, we shall investigate reports that unless viewed as fabrications, seem to describe a presently unknown form of seal with a long neck, as mistaken identity does not seem to fit.
The Filey Encounter
This British encounter with a Sea Serpent, seen on land, took place at night and was apparently reported in the Daily Telegraph for the 1/3/1934.
It was witnessed by Mr Wilkinson Herbert, a local Coast guard who had taken a wrong turn along the sands at Filey Brigg in Yorkshire during the course of his duty. Loch Ness had made the news the year before and the climate was right for such strangeness.
Mr Herbert was walking along the beach, on a path near the waters edge, when he spied an object crawling over some black looking seaweed;
" Suddenly I heard a growling like a dozen dogs ahead, walking nearer I switched on my torch and was confronted by a huge neck, six yards in front of me, rearing up 8 ft. high! The head was a startling sight- huge eyes like saucers, glaring at me, the creatures mouth was a foot wide and neck would be a yard around. The monster appeared as startled as I was. Shining my torch along the ground I saw a body about 30ft. long. I thought this was no place for me and from a distance I threw stones at the creature. It moved away growling fiercely and I saw the huge black body had two humps on it and four short legs with huge flappers on them. I could not see any tail. It moved quickly, rolling from side to side, and went into the sea. From the cliff top I looked down and saw two eyes like torchlight’s shining out to sea 300 yards away. It was a most gruesome and thrilling experience. I have seen big animals abroad, but nothing like this."
Although there have been some sightings of Sea Serpents from around Yorkshire, to the best of my knowledge, it is not renown for them and coming just the year after the Loch Ness affair broke, sceptics may well view it as some form of tourist ploy. Strangely, or coincidentally maybe, this was not the first time a strange water monster had been seen around Filey.
Sometime before or after this sighting local fishermen had been wondering why the fish had disappeared from the Filey coast and were experiencing their worst season in living memory when a similar creature was then observed in the area at sea.1 One witness claimed it was bigger than a motorboat and had a `tree trunk` neck, while another described small eyes, a big head and a long “raking body with two bumps on it”.
And in fact a very long time before Mr Herbert’s encounter, no less than a Dragon had been seen. 2
The Filey dragon legend concerns a local Taylor, Billy Biter. Mr Biter was walking along the cliffs one mediaeval, misty morning, when he tumbled into a ravine that turned out to be the lair of a dragon.The dragon was about to devour him when Billy offered a local sweet delicacy, a parkin, which the dragon enjoyed so much, that he let Billy go. Billy told his wife who then set about baking the biggest and sickliest parkin in the whole of Yorkshire, which when offered to the dragon, caused its jaws to become stuck tight. The dragon then flew into the sea but could not overcome the icy waves. Its bones turned to stone and became Filey Brigg.
A truly delightful account with some similarities to Mr Herbert’s Beast so did Mr Herbert feel the time was right for another dragon?
Doubtful, as apparently he received quite a bit of ridicule from his colleagues.
Anyway, thanks to his torch, we have a good basic description of a large, unidentified animal, with a distinct neck, four flippers, no obvious tail and one that seems to move like a sea lion.
The animal growls fiercely and has eyes ` as big as saucers` that shine `like torchlight’s`, (seals have very reflective retinas, which reflect light in much the same manner as a cat).
There is no description of fur or whiskers, but under the circumstances, this is understandable.
So what did he see?
The basic description would seem to fit a seal identity with some similarities between the creature seen and for instance a rearing Elephant Seal, (albeit a long way from home), which would also approach the length described. However, an Elephant Seal would not show the sort of neck that Herbert seems to describe, even if rearing and as we have seen would not roll from side to side when moving, being a phocid.
At face value then, a large otariid seal with a long neck would fit the bill rather nicely and although I feel this is a fairly convincing case for such a creature, there is one, very remote possibility concerning out of the way pinnipeds. It is one that the reader may feel should have been mentioned before with regard to mistaken identity.
For many years The Brisons, a group of rocks off Cornwall, have been the home to an extremely out of place pinniped, a Stellers sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus). Nobody is sure how such an animal, which is usually found in the North Pacific to the coasts of Japan and Mexico, got there, but it is a member of the largest species of otariid seal, which can reach 14 ft. in length.
So although an unlikely possibility as concerns the Filey account, a similar encounter of such an animal or a similar wandering species around the British coast could well account for eared, seal like sea serpents. In fact from what we have learned so far from the various descriptions, maybe there are regular otariid travellers to our shores.
A strikingly similar episode occurred in 1962 at Helensburgh on the Firth of Clyde, close to the entrance of Gare Loch. Jack Hay was walking his dog when it began to whimper and cower. Mr Hay later recounted:
“About 40 yards away I made out a massive bulk with a sort of luminous glow from the street lamps on the esplanade. It did not move for a minute, and then seemed to bound and slither into the water. I saw the thing swim out. It had a long body and neck and a head about three feet long. I watched until it was well out in the water and had disappeared. There was a strong pungent smell in the air”.
Although scared he examined the spot where he had seen the creature and by the light of a match made out a footprint in the sand which had three pads and a spur to the rear. The sighting appeared to be linked with strange unexplainable noises that had been reported by residents and the fact that the canine population of the area seemed to be unusually reluctant to go out at night. The luminescence he later explained was due to the street lamps which is slightly reassuring as otherwise it bares all of the hallmarks of a close encounter.
This bounding behemoth has many similarities to Wilkinson’s monster but now leaves a nasty smell in the air.
As far as the footprints are concerned they do not seem to match anything normally found around British shores. If they were from a seal then you would expect them to be from a phocid as apart from wandering walruses and of course the sea lion at the Brisons, there are no native otariids. Phocid tracks tend to have a noticeable drag mark, where the animal drags itself along leaving paw prints on either side. Otariid tracks do not have such prominent drag marks as the animals body is off the ground when moving.3 They appear more semi-circular in nature and will also include a mark, sometimes indistinguishable, from their rear flippers which are drawn up to their fore flippers, (could this give an impression of a spurred track?).
Authors (poor) attempt at demonstrating phocid tracks (left) and otariid (right).
Although Heuvelmans includes the following account, it does not appear to have been widely published, probably owing to the highly romantic description given by the witness, G. Batchelor which could well be viewed as a modern `fairy tail`.
Batchelor apparently spied the creature whilst serving on The Corinthian when the ship was sailing off The Grand Banks of Newfoundland, in 1913.I have included it in its full version here as found in, "In The Wake of The Sea Serpents".
" As the `Corinthian` was ploughing her way westward, I was officer of the watch `on duty at the time`. At 4.30 a.m. in the cold gray dawn of August 30th, 1913, on The Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the look out man had just gone off and the third officer had left the bridge to see if all was well around the decks, while casting my eyes around the horizon I picked up an object about a mile off right ahead. The best conjecture I could make as to its nature was that it was a fishing boat lying end on to us. In the dense and extensive fogs, which sweep over the fishing banks sailors frequently become separated from their schooners and many starve for days before being picked up. I had just such an incident in mind as I watched the object ahead. When it suddenly disappeared beneath the surface, being still unenlightened I thought of tragedy. Suddenly however, after I had meditated upon serious things something surprising showed itself about two hundred feet away from the ship. First appeared a great head, long fin like ears and great blue eyes. The eyes were mild and liquid, with no indication of ferocity. Following sad eyes came a neck, it was a regular neck alright, all of twenty feet in length which greatly resemble a Giraffe. The monster took its time in emerging so long that I wondered what the end would be. The neck...seemed to be set on a ball bearing, so supple was it and so rhythmically did it sway while the large liquid blue eyes took in the ship with a surprised, injured and fearful stare. The creature was well fixed for side arms. Three horny fins surmounted its bony head, probably for defence and attack or for ripping things up. The body was about the same size as the neck very much like a monster seal or sea lion with short water smoothed fur. The tail was split into two fins. The colour scheme was good, although some might think it giddy; light brownish yellow tastefully spattered with spots of a darker hue. For a minute the creature inspected the `Corinthian` with its roving gaze, and then disappeared, showing its after works as it dived. Its whole attitude while in sight was that of one `moving about in worlds unrealised`. It seemed to be trying to comprehend a curiosity, which it had good reason to believe, might be a new danger. I almost felt tenderness for it and never have I experienced such a minute in my life. Down in my room I had a camera and a rifle. Yet I was the only one on the bridge besides the quartermaster at the wheel. I don’t mind confessing that I wavered between my duty and desire for some sort of shot. Finally I stayed, but I don’t know whether I should take full credit for that or not because I hated to lose sight of the thing. As it watched me it churned the water into foam and spray with its huge front fins. As it went out of sight it emitted a piercing wail like that of a baby. Its voice was altogether out of proportion to its size."
Batchelor`s delightful sketch
Wow!, what a charming account, liquid blue eyes and a twenty foot neck!
Now 4.30 a.m., on a cold `gray` morning, (not the best of times to see a sea serpent), awash in one of the roughest oceans of the world, it is easy to imagine a tired sailor glimpsing a seal, which to break the monotony of his watch and to keep him awake, takes on a Disney like reality, leaving him with a Grimm like fairy story to tell his grandchildren. In fact the reader may have already come to this conclusion, as clearly there is some degree of embellishment and high romance on Batchelor’s part.
However, Heuvelmans apparently had access to correspondence, which in his opinion validated the reliability of the witness. Batchelor`s poor zoology, (horns for ripping) and the fact that the whiskers of the creature in his sketch, mirror his own moustache in a portrait that was also included in Heuvelmans book (an interesting bit of psychology?), did not deter Heuvelmans from accepting the account as genuine. There are in fact some genuine sounding details, which combined with the fact that Batchelor himself thought he had seen a plesiosaur, which he quite clearly had not, add credence to the account.
The climate of the time, predisposed to the notion of there being large saurians at large in the worlds oceans, yet despite this, Batchelor witnesses a mammal which instead of making a mighty saurian roar, wails like a baby. Matters are somewhat confused though, by Bachelor’s assertion that such a creature may have played a part in the sinking of The Titanic! Now what a film that would make.
From his drawing, the ears and eyes of the creature do not appear to be as big as he suggests and apart from the long neck of the creature and mane like fin, the sketch could be a highly stylised drawing of an otariid seal and the disturbance that the fore flippers make in the water suggests such an animal.
So did Bachelor see a known seal that stimulated his already obvious, vivid imagination, to produce a friendly dragon, or did he in fact witness a seal with a long neck?
I think it is up to the reader to decide.
This account comes from the waters of British Columbia and is one of many that have been attributed to `Caddy`, the resident sea serpent. It was reported by a professional fisherman, David Miller and took place in 1959, off the Discovery Light.
" While engaged in commercial fishing... my partner Alfred Webb and I observed this strange creature surface roughly 80 ft. from our port beam. It started to move rapidly away from us so we speeded the engine up and gave chase. We got within 30ft. when it suddenly submerged, not in the method that seals and sea lions do, but as though something had pulled it under. A few minutes later we arrived at theplace of submergence and there was turbulence suggesting a 30ft. sei. Whale. Its speed under water was also astounding as it surfaced a few minutes later over a hundred yards away. It stayed up while we took off after it again but this time it never let us get close again. The first encounter was so clear that both of us remarked about its large red eyes and short ears visible at that range."
Discovery Island Creature.
This
report is fairly straightforward and is excellently illustrated.
Here we have a 10ft., fur covered head and neck, complete with small ears, characteristics that no presently known marine animal possesses and is reported by a witness who must be familiar with the local fauna. The head is very seal like and it is interesting to note that although the ears are visible, seen against the head of the creature in the sketch, they may only be distinguishable at close distance. Although the animal does not dive like a seal, surely the only obvious candidate for such a creature’s identity, would be an otariid seal with a long neck.
As briefly mentioned before, British Columbia has its own resident sea serpent, Caddy.
Accounts of Caddy have been closely investigated by two scientists, P. LeBlond and J. Siebert, who initially concluded that three distinct, unknown animals, two of which that resembled Heuvelmans `Merhorse` and `Long Neck`, were probably involved. In fact other accounts of `Caddy` over the years have highlighted similar features to the Discovery Island one and seem to verify such a mammalian identity.
In 1934, two boys saw `Caddy` sporting a head like that of a cow with horns or ears, mounted on a 4ft. neck while a W. Kennedy spied a strange animal from his waterfront property in West Vancouver. It had a head that was serpentine in character, 18" length and 12" in cross section, without ears or horns. It was grey brown and smooth haired like a seal with a three and a half foot neck, which it held at an angle of 45 degrees.
Two large (40ft.) creatures were later seen in 1939, the largest one with hair on its horse like head and on its body while in 1950 a naval officer saw a creature with a head something like a garden snake, 18 inches across and two feet in length. It propelled itself with large flippers on either side and had a flat tail like a beavers (? hind flippers). The head sat on a neck about six feet long and the head and body were covered with hair, brown in colour. More recently in 1984 a furry creature approximately 18-20 ft. long, 4ft. out of the water was seen with two large floppy ears and two stub like horns by men fishing off the Spanish Banks in Vancouver.
Ears and hair? These must surely relate to a mammal, and what better mammal than a seal with a long neck?
Worth mentioning, before we move on though, is a theory that has become popular in recent years for such sightings, especially for American Sea and Lake Monsters. The theory holds that a primitive whale, something like the zeuglodon, may have survived to the present day and provided that evolution had not changed it significantly from its primitive form, hair and whiskers may still be present.
However, although such a theory is certainly not impossible as an explanation for some Sea Serpents, especially as the protecids, ancestors of the whales were thought to have fur, there is no evidence that any primitive whale had a long neck comparable with such sightings.
If this account is true and there appears no reason to think otherwise, then it is arguably the most convincing for the existence of a seal with a long neck. It took place off The Orkney Islands, (Hoy), in 1919 in the Pentland Firth, a body of water between the Orkneys and the coast of Scotland. It was not reported in the press of the time, but by personal correspondence to Rupert T. Gould who included it in is seminal work, “The Case for the Sea Serpent”.
Mr Mackintosh Bell, a writer or lawyer by profession from Moffat was on holiday helping out some friends on a local cod fishing boat. He planned to stay in the Orkneys for a month following recent demobilisation. It was his first day out at and around 9.30 a.m. on possibly the 5th August his friends had been telling him about a strange sea creature which they had seen on several previous occasions.
While inspecting Lobster creels, between Brims Ness and Tor Ness, Bells friends, who had commented on the animal moments before, pointed it out as it appeared, right on cue.
" I looked and sure enough about 25-30 yards from the boat a long neck as thick as an Elephants fore leg, all rough looking like an Elephants hide, was sticking up. On top of this was the head which was much smaller in proportion, but of the same colour. The head was like that of dogs, coming sharp to the nose. The eye was black and small, and the whiskers were black. The neck, I should say, stuck 5-6ft., possibly more out of the water. The animal was very shy, and kept pushing its head up then pulling it down but never quite going out of sight. The body I could not see. Then it disappeared and I said `If it comes again I’ll take a snapshot of it`. Sure enough it did come and I took as I thought a snap of it, but on looking at the camera shutter, I found it had closed owing to its being swollen, so I did not get a photo. I then said `I’ll shoot it`, but the skipper would not hear of it in case I wounded it, and it might attack us. It disappeared and as was its custom swam close along side the boat about 10ft. down. We all saw it plainly, my friends remarking that they had seen it swimming just the same way after it had shown itself on the surface. My friends told me they had seen it in the same place the year before. It was a common occurrence so they said. That year was the last of several years in which they saw it annually. It did not show itself for two or three years, and then it was only seen once. As to its body, it was, as seen below the water, dark brown, getting slightly lighter as it got to the outer edge, then at the outer edge appeared to be almost grey. It had two paddles or fins at its side and two at its stern. My friends thought it would weigh 2 or 3 tons, some thinking 4-6. Not only my friends, but others lobster fishing, got many chances of seeing it.
Dimensions; Neck, so far as seen, say 6-7ft. Body, never seen when neck straight up, but just covered in the water. You could detect the paddles causing the water to ripple. When underwater, swimming, the body, I think, to the end of the tail flappers would be about 12 feet long, and if the neck was stretched to 8 ft., the neck and body 18-20ft. long.
The skipper of the boat remarked that sometimes the top of the head, when seen from a boat vertically, was a bright red. Neck thickness say 1 foot diameter: Head very like a black retriever say 6" long by 4" broad. Whiskers black and short. Circumference of body Say10-11 ft., but this I am not sure of, as I never saw all round it, but it would be 4-5ft. across the back."
Bell’s friends added rather mysteriously that if another hot summer prevailed, the creature would be seen again.
Bell himself included two excellent little sketches that seem to leave little doubt to what sort of animal we are dealing with here.
Mackintosh
Bell’s creature.
Bells sketches are pretty convincing and clearly denote some form of pinniped form that appears to have a long neck. The description and size is fairly small and such a size is not unknown from presently known pinnipeds, but no known species, could present such a long and well defined neck.
There do not appear to be ears present, from both the account and the sketches; however, in Heuvelmans version of the sketch there appears to be some attempt at illustrating something, on the profile of the animal’s head. There is no tail apparent or described, just the rear flippers that could give a divided “ tail” impression.
Now seals are common around the Orkneys and must surely be seen frequently by fishing boat crews, so perhaps the greatest mystery of this account is why didn’t Bell’s friends relate their sighting to such an animal species? Admittedly it does not look like a conventional seal having a long neck but even so apart from this every other feature of its morphology is in keeping with known seals even down to the whiskers. Although the creature seems hairy from the sketches there is no remark on fur as such. The `red` appearance sometimes seen on the top of the head is quite an unusual feature but to me makes this account more convincing as it appears to serve no purpose in relation to exaggerating the sighting.
Was Mackintosh Bell then, a clever prankster anticipating Heuvelmans by forty years, or did he and his friends observe an unknown species of seal with a long neck?
A few years before in 1910 a W.J.Hutchison, his father and cousin who were sailing for the Skerries to shoot duck and plover saw a similar type of creature. Their attention had been initially caught by a school of agitated whales moving away from the area at high speed when they observed a creature with a snake like neck and head much like that of a horse or camel. Hutchison also thought about taking a shot at the animal but was convinced by his father not to lest the animal turn and attack them.
Nor was this the only previous time such a strange beast had been encountered.
Around 1850 a young boy, Alec Groundwater was spending a day in Orphir situated on the mainland. He was on the shore, perched on some rocks, gazing out over the Scapa Flow his legs dangling out into the water. The sea beneath him suddenly began to boil and an animal with a broad, flat head and a wide mouth containing some “wicked” looking teeth or tusks surfaced. It apparently glared fiercely at Alex with “cold baleful eyes”, before rearing up and attempting to seize the lads dangling legs.
Fortunately the monsters attempts failed and it eventually plunged beneath the sea surfacing once to “shake its head and mane till the water cascaded from it on all sides, then disappeared”.
Further Conclusions?
The Filey encounter is frustrating. As it occurred at night further detailed information with regard to fur etc. is not available. The element of surprise also probably obscured events. As it happened at a time when Loch Ness would have been fresh news, there could be elements of exaggeration. However as a similar creature was seen in the locale at sea and the fact that Wilkinson’s beast lacks a conspicuous tail, I think a hoax is not the case. A large wandering otariid similar to the Stellers sea lion at the Brisons may offer a remote possibility.
Batchelors account is more difficult to accept when the fairy tail features of his animal are taken at face value. The fact that he thinks he is watching some form of plesiosaur, which seems to have changed into a mammal somewhere along the line, would seem to indicate the account is true. Given his vivid imagination he could have clearly made a more convincing case for a reptilian leviathan.
The Discovery Island encounter is difficult to identify if not a seal with a long neck. The animal has fur and ears. The sceptic will no doubt promote some form of temperature inversion, which would perhaps make the neck appear longer than it really was. The fact that similar creatures have been seen in the general area, sometimes when the weather is poor however would seem to indicate that the encounter was as described. The witness, being a professional fisherman, would surely have experience of such phenomena anyway.
This brings us to the Mackintosh Bell report, perhaps the most convincing.
There is little to be said here unless the encounter was a complete fabrication. We have a seal like description and shape for the animal along with sober measurements and observations that you would probably expect from observing an animal so clearly.
It is a shame Bells camera seized up. Hevelmans could have been saved a lot of trouble.
As I have stated previously, this work is not intended to convince anyone that the Surreal Seal exists. It would be nice to gain support for future research and contemplation but ultimately I am trying to make sense of what some witnesses of sea serpents are actually seeing then trying to build a framework for the existence of a creature that best fits their descriptions.
The following part of this work will concentrate on doing just this.
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