HEAD, NECK AND WHISKERS
Mammal or Reptile?
One of the most argued points with regard to the traditional long necked sea serpent is the question of whether such creatures if they exist are mammals or reptiles. The above three reports which describe fur must obviously relate mammals whether they are known animals or a new species. The greater debate will inevitably continue until physical evidence of one sort or other is definitively obtained and presented for everyone to see.
In the following pages I have included reports of animals that again sound more mammal than reptile but will endeavour not to take sides but merely present some of the evidence that I feel indicates a mammal in these accounts. Although classed as sea serpent accounts, I have tried to explore more mundane possibilities where possible.
In October 1997, a Mr Pickard was doing a spot of night fishing on a beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk, England 6. It was about 2 a.m. and he was not enjoying much luck. He moved further down the beach to cast off when he saw what he first took for a tree trunk floating in the water. It appeared to have a tangled looking mass of exposed roots at one end. However after it began bobbing up and down in the water he realised that it was not merely a piece of wood. Moreover the root like projections appeared to be some form of horny growth on a rather unusual animal that was swimming off shore. He could see 8-10ft. of this creature, which subsequently changed course and began swimming inland. As he watched he became convinced that he was observing a horse, possibly washed overboard during recent storms in the area.
Mr Picards creature.
He was just about to phone the RSPCA to report this matter when the creature turned parallel to the shore and he then realised that it was not a horse, but a very unusual animal the like of which he had never seen before. As he watched, the animal proceeded to put its ears back at a 45-degree angle and disappear beneath the water.
Following his encounter he tried to find an explanation for what he had seen and in a round about way came across my website. He emailed me through a work colleague enclosing his telephone number and I subsequently phoned him and discussed things further. Having come across some cryptozoological references he was convinced that he had seen one of Heuvelmans merhorses.
Now this is quite an intriguing encounter and if not a horse swimming (underwater!?) or similar terrestrial animal then it is hard to determine exactly what he saw. He was extremely honest in his account and did not claim to have seen a long neck or any other common preconceptions of what a sea serpent should look like.
Logically you would expect any animal that displays external ears to be a mammal and it would be tempting to argue that what he saw was a seal, as certainly in profile it does seem to bear a resemblance. However no native seal species of the British Isles has visible ears (an exception of course could be a harbour seal that had developed pinnae or an alien species). Interestingly in profile the ears appear quite short compared to the front view. There had been a couple of reports of unusual and unidentified animals from around this area in previous years but specific detail from them is lacking. Sceptics no doubt, will argue that this is merely a report of a horse that had decided, for whatever reason to take a late night dip.
This will not be the last time we encounter mammalian features such as ears, as they will literally `crop` up in future accounts. Where those accounts relate to an animal, which bares a long neck it, should be a good indication of a mammalian identity. What should be remembered however is that the accounts I have included are only a few from many hundreds which do not include such details. Strikingly similar creatures have been seen the world over, sometimes very closely, yet such features have not been reported in these accounts.
So does this mean that there is a whole menagerie of unknowns out there or does it imply that witnesses selectively pick out certain bits of information based on some subconscious opinion that they already have or want to perceive?
Misidentification of known animals in unfamiliar environments probably plays a part in some less detailed accounts of potential sea serpents and will always be used to explain them. Therefore to present a philosophical approach to this subject it is probably a good time to introduce some lateral thinking, with regard to alternative possible identities before we go any further. This is not designed to refute or discredit any of the included accounts but will hopefully show an open mind on my part and allow the reader speculate on all possibilities. This is important as sea serpents and lake monsters the world over do seem to take on a bewildering variety of guises.
Firstly it is well known that many species of marine sea creatures end up far from home during their travels. Seals are notorious travelers and many species can travel thousands of miles away from their normal range. Hooded seals for instance usually found in Arctic waters, have been spotted as far a field as Puerto Rico. Harp and ringed seals have also been found wandering the British coast as far as Cornwall.7 One walrus made it to Norfolk in 1981 while another turned up on some rocks in County Mayo, Ireland in 1999. Previous to this a dead one had been found in County Kerry in 1995.8 Recent research into their mating habits, has also shown that bull elephant seals may travel as far as 8000 miles for a good night out. In fact elephant seals may spend 3-7 months foraging for food on journeys that may take them thousands of miles from their habitat9. Also seals, dolphins and the like are able to swim into rivers and lakes while seals can also travel long distances over land. In fact I would suggest that many incidences of lake monsters and some sea serpent accounts are simply due to the wanderlust of these animals.
A recent survey has also estimated that there are probably up to 3000 whales and dolphins cruising the seas around the UK and when you then add porpoises, oarfish (long serpentine fish with red crests that can reach 30 feet or more), sunfish and leatherback turtles (which can reach over 5 ft. in length), again, all of which have been found in British waters, it becomes rather muddled.10 If we now add all the possible combinations of marine life found in different parts of the world where sea serpents have also been reported we may end up totally bewildered.
More surprisingly and to add to this global confusion, it is not just marine animals that take to the water. Pigs from the Tokelau Island in the South Pacific have been known to wander over coral reefs at low tide, while domestic sheep in Scotland have been swimming out and foraging on the intertidal kelp beds for hundreds of years. Deer can swim and have been seen doing just this at Loch Ness. In fact sika deer, introduced to Britain from Japan, can apparently swim up to 12km in the sea while their cousins, moose, in Scandinavia, have been reported swimming from Sweden to Denmark. 11,12 Moose are also apparently accomplished divers and can actually dive to 4 or 5 metres and stay down for 1-2 minutes before resurfacing. Not to be out done, there are also `udder` accounts of sea going cows trawling the coasts, milk floats indeed!
However apart from the general reported size of sea serpents, which seem to exceed these land creatures and the fact that such accounts usually relate to fast moving animals, which are seemingly at home in the water, it is not unreasonable to assume some possible `unknowns` are simply due to seeing a familiar land animal, unfamiliar in the sea. However for any land animal to surface, then swim, then submerge and disappear is quite a feat.
Moving on….
The following report is as far as I know unpublished and was sent to me by a Mrs Wilma Greenwald to whom I owe many thanks. It came to light in defence of some of the scepticism that was being levelled at the Loch Ness affair during one of its regular flare ups in the 50s and was subsequently reported at a much later date than when it actually took place most notably in the Aberdeen Evening Express 19/5/1958.
It was witnessed by the father of Mrs Greenwalds uncle, a Mr Aitken (senior), who was at the time a Scottish fisheries manager and dates to somewhere between 1874-1878 on a day when he was out in the water of Loch Broom fishing.13
Mr Aitken was alone in a boat at the end of the loch, which is a sea loch in the North West of Scotland, when he heard a rushing sound like that of a waterfall despite the fact that the loch was perfectly calm and still. When he looked round for the source of the noise he saw, about 500 yards away:
".. a monster about 10 ft. high rushing along at a great rate throwing up spray and waves like a steamer. The monster turned its head and looked straight at me, then probably sensing danger from the boat, quickly submerged. The neck above the water was about 10 ft. high and 3ft.diameter. On the back of the neck there was a mane which looked like the tips of tangles, and it had some sea weed like growths about its mouth. It had two large glassy eyes set high on the head. The whole colour was that of dark seaweed."
Mr Aitken later sketched the beast along with the positioning of his boat when the sighting took place including various details regarding the animal’s course while in the loch.
From the written information given to me by Mrs Greenwald I can find no reason for doubting or disputing this report. Here we have a creature with a 10ft. neck, apparent mane to boot and one that seems to be moving at fair speed.
Mr Aitkens sketch.
The drawing also seems to include what appear to be whiskers (? seaweed like growths).
Heuvelmans, the reader will remember, included both such features on his `merhorse`, of which this creature is strikingly reminiscent.
Taking into account the recent discussion into mistaken identity, there are few if any animals, which could give the above impression, even if we reduce the length of the neck to some degree.
None that are presently known anyway.
The sketch is also interesting, as it typifies the sort of appearance that is common when describing a `mane` seen on a sea serpent, of which there are many accounts.
A very similar description to Mr Aitkens impression of a mane is given from a Mrs Hildegarde Forbes who in 1922 was a passenger on a steamer bound for Alaska. The boat was passing along the east coast of Vancouver Island when she saw a forty-foot `Monster`. The creature had a snake like raised head; five to seven humps with again a mane that `seemed like seaweed`.
Similar such accounts have been noted the world over and figure most conspicuously in Celtic and Scandinavian folklore. These are often echoed worldwide, possibly as a result of migrant colonisation. There are also beliefs and motifs associated with such a feature, some with a deep cultural significance.
Heuvelmans in fact includes two early reports from Norway in his book, both of which mention manes. One from 1837 describes an enormous creature with a horse like head and mane, a moustache like a seals and big black eyes apparently as `big as saucers`. The other more detailed account was related by a Norwegian fisherman who while practising his livelihood one day was disturbed and cogitated over by a large inquisitive animal about `five to six fathoms` long with a body `as round as a snakes`, two feet in diameter. The head was as thick and as long as ten-gallon cask with five inch glistening red eyes. The serpent held its head at an angle above the water and close behind this spreading on both sides and floating on the water, was a brown mane of `tolerably long hair`.
As intriguing as these last two accounts are, apart from the large size given to the observed creatures, they sound like some form of seal. Although we have no obvious description of a long neck in these the appearance of the manes seems to indicate that they are visibly noticeable, that is they are distinct. If the animals were some kind of known maned, pinnipeds with water-smoothed fur you would perhaps expect that their manes would not be as readily distinguishable.
If however these or similar creatures represented some form of long necked pinniped which was related for instance to the otariid clan, then like mature male fur seals a mane could be present. If this was the case it could be assumed logically that the mane may give a flowing appearance, as there would be a longer neck and shoulder region for it to cover in such an animal.
Whatever the nature of this attribute it clearly stands out, as a further report from North America will illustrate, interestingly also from around the Vancouver Island region.
Two women, a Mrs Stout and Mrs Parson, accompanied by their respective young sons, were walking along Dungeness Spit in British Columbia on a rainy, foggy March day in 1961. They were watching a large freighter through the mist when they saw what they first took to be a tree limb (sound familiar?). This disappeared beneath the water before reappearing again. When it did so they saw a flattish head and three humps behind a long neck appear. The object, some type of animal was quite distinct in the poor visibility and appeared to be observing the ship. The women described it as having a `floppy` mane or `fin` on its neck and in a sketch, which was later drawn, this feature is quite strikingly illustrated. The whole encounter lasted about 8 minutes and left them quite confused as to what they had actually witnessed. Indeed Mrs Stout who was in fact a trained biologist, could not reconcile such a feature with any known animal.
Two views of the Dungeness Sea Serpent.
We will find further reports from British Columbia relating to the resident sea serpent there, known as Caddy, short for Cadborosaurus, just as revealing in future pages. Before we move on though I will include one more report from this general area.
This sighting took place on the coast of Oregon in an area where a natural chasm breaks the rocky shoreline and is known locally as `Devils Churn`. In 1937 a Mr and Mrs White were watching spectacular wave breaks across the `Churn` on another rainy and this time stormy day. They spotted an animal at the mouth of the Churn swimming towards the shore and were shortly joined by a passing truck driver who had also seen it appear as he was driving along a nearby road.
It had a long neck, apparently 15 foot, which reminded the witnesses variously of a horse, a giraffe or a camel. It had a mane the colour of seaweed (again), which in this locality is also brown, that was visible on the neck trailing all the way down to the body. A tail was seemingly noticed giving the impression of an animal with a length of about 55 feet. On the head were two projections which Mr Hunt took to be small fluttering ears while his wife thought that they were really 8-10 inch small, straight horns.
The Devils Churn Sea Serpent
Although the above sketch may remind the reader of a hobbyhorse we are left with a very similar creature to the Dungeness Spit one. It is seen in an area haunted by some unknown animal, has a mane and this time also has small ear like appendages.
What appears to be the tail in the sketch looks more like the tail end to me rather than anything definite while the `ears` or `horns` seem out of proportion for such a big animal. However if we are looking for a pinniped identity and take the horns as definite ears then there is probably a strong resemblance to how they may appear on a similarly sized otariid seal.
Moving closer to home now, another eared `something` was seen off the coast of Cork ( Ireland) in 1907.
The witness was the future commodore of the Cunard shipping line, Sir Arthur Rostron who later recounted the details of his unusual sighting in his memoirs.
While chief officer on board The Campania which was on its way into port, an unusual looking animal was spotted about 50 feet from the boat and was seen to be “turning its head from side to side”. The head itself was 8-9 feet out of the water on a 12-inch thick neck. It had “two small protuberances where the eyes should have been”, and very small ears. Rostron produced a sketch:
Rostrons sketch.
The projections in his sketch do give the impression of ears but things are slightly confused when the matters of the `small protuberances` are taken into account.
Three years later and further up the coast another sighting was made and makes for interesting reading.
It occurred in 1910 and was witnessed by a Howard St. George and one of his sons on the coast of Connemera in Mayo.
An animal was sighted floating on an ebb tide into Kilkerrin Bay. It was “ as big as a large 2-horse lorry” with a hairy body about twenty feet long. It had a head at the end of a six-foot long neck, which again was swaying from side to side as if the creature was looking for something.
What this something may have been is anybodies guess.
Nearly twenty-five years later in 1934 back in Scotland, on the east side of Campletown Loch on the Kintyre peninsula John MacCorkindale, a local naturalist, was talking to a postman on a road, which skirted the shore. Their conversation was rudely interrupted by a loud splash. When they turned round to the source of the noise they saw an enormous creature about 300yards from shore.
It would apparently raise the front part of its body out of the water for about 12 feet and then flop down in the water, something that it repeated several times before finally giving up the ghost, submerging and disappearing from their view. MacCorkindale a trained observer later described the animal as having a fore body similar to that of a giraffe with a long thin neck, small head and ears reminding him somewhat of a land animal. It was a glistening silvery colour and was about 30 feet long.
MacCorkindale also got the impression of some `trace of a dorsal fin`, something which you would expect from a whale rather than a plesiosaur or pinniped. However if the animal was `splashing around` it could have been that the dorsal fin was really a displaced flipper. Even so it leaves us no better off otherwise in deciding just what the creature really was.
Time to move on a bit now.
In 1943, off the north west coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, Thomas Helm an ex–marine, was sailing with his wife on their sixteen-foot yacht when at about 4 p.m. he had to change course for fear of hitting an odd animal that suddenly appeared and began making its way towards them.
The water was apparently as smooth as a mirror at the time and they were both able to get a very good view of the animal, which enabled them to provide the following detailed description.
" It had the head about the size of a basket ball, on a neck that reached nearly 4ft. out of the water. It was unmistakingly some kind of animal. The entire head and neck were covered with wet fur, which lay close to the body and glistened in the afternoon sunlight. When it was almost beside our boat, the head turned and looked squarely at us. My first thought was that we were seeing some kind of giant otter or seal, but I was immediately impressed by the fact that this was not the face of an otter or seal".
Helm had a keen interest in zoology and was apparently familiar with seals and otters.
"The
head of the creature, with the exception that there was no evidence
of ears, was that of a monstrous cat. The face was fur covered and
flat and the eyes were set in the front of the head. The colour of
the fur was uniformly a rich chocolate brown. The well-defined eyes
were round and about the size of a silver dollar and were
glistening black. There was evidence of a flattened nose, and just
below where I judged the mouth should be, a moustache of stiff black
hairs, with a downward curve on each side".
He further contemplates;
"
Seals and Sea Lions have long pointed noses, and the eyes are
situated on the side of the head like those of a squirrel or rat. The
creature my wife and I saw had eyes which were positioned near the
front of the face like those of a cat."
To
begin with, the animal is a mammal; it has fur and whiskers and is
likened to an otter or seal. The head seen quite clearly does not
appear to have ears, unless they are sleeked back. If they are not
present then we can rule out an otter or otariid. A sea otter
averages about 6 feet. in length, while a marine otter may manage
4ft., making the head and neck of the creature seen, practically the
same overall size of the animal. These mustelids also reside in the
Pacific, not the Atlantic.
Although mistakes can be made, Helm presumably would have been able to identify an animal he was familiar with and despite sounding very seal like he makes much about the eyes of the creature being positioned differently to those of a seal. To me though, this description is appropriate for some pinnipeds such as phocid seals.
Could Helm and his wife have seen a rare, or unusual seal, such as the then already rare Caribbean monk seal? The habitat of this seal ranged throughout the Gulf of Mexico from the Bahamas to Central America and it was known to be very approachable in nature, one of the things that led to its demise as sailors, whalers and fishermen culled it to extinction.
Although unconfirmed reports of survival have been made, recent surveys have concluded that this species no longer exists, being officially declared extinct in 1996. The last valid account of such a creature is accepted as being 1952, (after Helms` sighting) and because of its rarity it would have been unfamiliar. According to scientific description, it did have brown fur and reached 2.5 metres in length (8 ft.).
Despite all this there is however one fact that needs to be taken into account which may discourage such an answer.
Helm states that the creature is close to the boat and if the side of the boat was used as a reference to height, then we have a four foot head and neck, with no evidence of fore flippers, or disturbance of water, indicating such. This is quite a height and if a known pinniped were stretched out in such a manner, surely the rest of the body would be fairly noticeable.
Helm who later went on to write his own book on sea serpents recounted:
" It stared at the boat for an instant as if quite uninterested, then swung round and dived."
A
similar account was related to Heuvelmans by a friend of a friend,
Michael Peer Groves, who witnessed a strikingly similar animal in The
Isle of Man in? 1928. Peer Groves provided the following sketch:
M.P.Groves sketch
The animal was described as having a head the size of `a large bull, but rather broader “between the ears`, ending in a long, dog like snout.
The similarity to the Helm creature is amazing, but there are very few details apart from the very descriptive sketch provided. It is quite possible that the creature was just a common pinniped although again it has ears, which must make it a wandering, or non-native species. Peer Groves apparently commented;
" It was so nice....so nice."
So nice.
The general feel of these two accounts may possibly remind the reader of the common demeanour and expected behaviour of a seal, shy, inoffensive and displaying the habit of mammalian curiosity.
For
another head and neck encounter, again little detailed, but possibly
showing a similardisposition we shall stay in English waters, but
travel to Herm in The Channel Islands.
It was related to Tim Dinsdale by a Mrs H. Bromley and is taken from Heuvelmans book.
The sighting occurred in August 1923 and was witnessed by no less than 14 people (!), guests of Sir Percival and Lady Perry.
The guests in the company of a local seaman had decided to take a stroll along the beach, following the tide as it went out. They were equipped with hooked sticks in case they came across any lobsters and had been walking for some time they came to a large tide pool:
"..but what held us all spellbound were marks on the sea weed as though something huge had come out of the pool and dragged itself over the seaweed covered sand, away to our right. We one and all turned and followed the drag marks, (if I can remember rightly), for some considerable distance, and then we came to a large pool, much larger than the first into which the drag marks disappeared. We all stood amazed, 14 of us, what could it be?Then slowly, away in the middle of the pool, a large head appeared and a huge neck, but we did not see the body; there it stayed with its great black eyes gazing at us without fear, then slowly sank back into the water."
The
group joined hands and tried to move into the pool in the hope of
disturbing the animal further but their ever vigilante guide said
that the tide was coming back in fast and that they would have to go
back.
Fourteen witnesses! Did they all fail to recognise a known animal?
Further details given to Dinsdale, revealed a 3-4ft. neck and a wide mouth like a “sea elephants”.
The animal had black looking skin and moved in an apparent slow and ponderous manner not seeming to be at all concerned with the attention that it was being given. We do not have any detail as to whether, ears, fur or whiskers were present but if Mrs Bromley compared the head to a seal then maybe they were.
At second glance there may at least be some similarities to a pinniped as Mrs Bromley thought the head of the creature was reminiscent of a seals, although she stated that she knew what a seal looked like and said that it was not a seal. The mouth however did remind her of a `sea elephant` while Mr Toby Bromley who was also present felt that the whole creature looked like a gigantic eel, which is obviously quite a discrepancy..Pinnipeds are well known to seek out and use tide pools, especially when they feel heat stressed (presumably the August day was sunny), and the 5-6 ft. drag marks are probably the sort of size marks that would be left by a large pinniped, (phocid?). Once again though, we have a 3-4ft. head and neck, above water, with no obvious sign of a body. Such a length would not be characteristic of a known pinniped or other sea going animal. Heuvelmans thought that the account provided a good description of one of his `long necks`, the tailless megophias.
The next report shares certain similarities to both the Peer Groves and the Helm account.
It took place in September 1957, as detailed by Heuvelmans. The sighting was made from a scallop ship, The Noreen`, as it sailed 120 miles east of St Georges Bank near Nantucket. The ships cook provided most of the information that was subsequently printed.
An animal had surfaced about 100 yards starboard of the ship with a `peculiar look about him`. The body was seen to be large with an alligator like head. The neck was of `medium size`, apparently matching the size of the head, while the body was shaped something like that of a seal with a mane of bristly hair or fur. This seemed to run down the middle of the head. The creature kept submerging then reappearing and the body was estimated at 40 ft. Despite the boat changing course the animal continued to display itself and when it surfaced it would turn its head towards the crew in a manner that seemed both `playful and curious`. During one of these precious moments two flippers, similar to those of a seal were also glimpsed.
The sighting was reconfirmed twenty years later by the ships captain who could still not reconcile it to other animals that he had seen and commented that it seemed to stay on the surface gliding along with the ship.
According to Heuvelmans an estimate of twenty-six feet was given for the length of the neck!, making the neck nearly twice as long as the body, which seems quite absurd. Heuvelmans felt that the length from his original source was a typographic error and the length was really 2ft. 6 although conversely this does not seem that great.
The creature appears to have been very seal like in appearance and behaviour. Again, apart from the estimated size, the creature could be taken as being just such an animal. Although why experienced seamen the world over do not identify such characteristic morphology with such creatures is a mystery in itself.
So from this brief selective sojourn can we begin to form any conclusions?
Stoquelers report appears promising while the Tasmanian account appears to be some form of seal. The Murrumbridge animal is an oddity although it has fur and therefore must be a mammal.
The Scottish and Irish reports as well as those from Alaska and North America seem to fit loosely with some form of long necked seal. The Suffolk sea serpent if it was not horse or deer swimming must be some form of pinniped while the Helm and Peer Groves encounters clearly denote some form of seal. The Noreen account also seems to hint at such an animal apart from its size while the Herm description sounds seal like in the animal’s attitude and demeanour. Unfortunately although drag marks were seen there is no mention of tracks, which may have indicated limb movement and could have then been helpful in identification.
Hopefully the reader may now appreciate why the title for this chapter was chosen.
Before we leave it in search of more detail I would like to include one last, again previously unpublished account that seems to sum things up quite well again proving very frustrating. It was emailed to me via my website by an American couple who I will refer to as the Ws. In their correspondence they made it clear that they were not publicity seekers, drug addicts or susceptible to hallucinations.16
“ My husband and I live in Northern California and just this last labour day weekend, visited some of our northern California beaches. Early on the morning of September 1, 2001, we were beachcombing an almost deserted beach (it was 7a.m.) and happened upon a creature, which my husband thought, was a seal. I had my doubts because of its colour, and its long and very limber and coordinated neck. Its face was also more pointed than most seals, it appeared to me to have an ermine-like or mink like face. I could not get close enough to it to really see if it had whiskers; they were not visible. The creature was sniffing the air at low tide, on the sand; it did not appear to be ill or anything of the sort. The colour was similar to that of a dark palomino horse; in other words, its fur was golden brown, rather than the usual dark brown, which seals have. It seemed also to be able to move much faster and in a more upright position than a seal. (We walked up a certain distance, where upon the creature would move a few feet away: we did these two or three times). The “ flippers” did not appear to be exactly like those belonging to a seal. I knew that what we had seen was probably rare, since I had never heard of such an animal anywhere, either extinct or currently living”
Here we have a very seal like animal that seems to differ from known pinnipeds by virtue of its `long and limber neck`. It is witnessed by a non-attention seeking couple who are obviously familiar with seals of which there are plenty in California.
Incidentally, my website dealt only with the notion of a long necked seal and was never popular (!). This would seem to indicate that the couple were trying hard to reconcile their description with the nearest match that they could find and must have searched specifically for something that was close to what they had seen. Needless to say I hurriedly returned an email thanking them for their account as well as asking if they could possibly supply more details, such as size, the definite presence of fur and more exact movement details. Unfortunately I never received a reply.
The original email was dated 6/8/2001 and of course a month later the American people would have a lot more important things on their minds.
The Ws., summed up their account and ended the email with a very apt sentence.
“Perhaps this beautiful creature can some day be identified”.
I hope so.
4 In personal correspondence with myself, Mr Picard did relate that previously he had noticed some unusual tracks on the beach, which were apparently later identified as deer tracks.
5If Mr Aitken was referring to the local kelp in his description of the mane, it could be assumed that it would therefore be brown in colour.
6 Coincidentally the Devils Churn it is about a dozen miles north of one of the largest underwater cave systems in the world, known as the Sea Lion Caves famous, you guessed it, for the sea lions that inhabit them.
7 Roland Peer Groves (son), verified his fathers account via my website. My memory is a bit hazy but I think that he mentioned that a photograph had been taken but had long since been lost.
8 Dinsdale authored several cryptozoological books and was one of the greatest proponents of the plesiosaur theory. He wrote extensively on the subject of the Loch Ness Monster and even succeeded in filming `the monster`. The film has stood up to rigorous analysis and is thought one of the best in support of Nessies existence
Electronic mail address
robert@cornes1.fsnet.co.uk
Web
address
http://www.cornes1.fsnet.co.uk