Ever since the first ships set sail, sailors and fisherman have reported sightings of sea
monsters.
They were popular staples of medieval maps in an age where most ocean animals were unknown
and they continue to be sighted today.
There's of course the famous Nessie from Scotland, there's Caddy from the Pacific Coast of North
America, Chessie from the Chesapeake Bay, and Champ from Lake Champlain, among others.
The New England Coast in particular has been a hotspot for sea serpent sightings at least
as far back as 1639, when a fisherman in Gloucester, Massachusetts reported seeing a serpent with
a turtle-like head and horns.
In this same area in the years between 1817 and 1819, hundreds of people saw a similar
monster.
There's even a report of a group of over 200 people who watched it for three hours.
In the years after the flurry of sightings, more people would sporadically come forward
with stories of similar monsters and giant snakes in the Atlantic waters but it wasn't
until 1937 that one particular sighting would become global news.
It all started in August when a fisherman named Bill Manville told a local newspaper
that he had spotted a 100 ft. long, green monster with red eyes the size of dinner plates
while out at sea.
The newspaper published his story but people had a hard time believing it until the next
day when another fisherman named Gilbert Manter said he spotted the creature while fishing
for bluefish off Smith's Point.
He said it looked like a cross between a snake and a whale, and that its head was bigger
than its neck.
He estimated it could have been around 120 ft. long.
The next morning, Manter and his friend Ed Crocker headed to Madaket Beach in the hopes
of spotting the serpent again.
They didn't find the monster but they did find its footprints, which measured 66 inches
long and 45 inches wide.
The photos were widely circulated in newspapers.
Scientists who viewed them were highly skeptical but the story nonetheless captured the public's
imagination, even if only as a source of entertainment.
But imagine everyone's surprise when a few days later, a sea serpent washed ashore.
It was 120ft long, with teeth as long as a man's arm and a forked tongue.
It also happened to be an inflatable balloon.
The whole thing was revealed to be a hoax orchestrated by puppeteer Tony Sarg, who was
the man responsible for the giant balloon characters in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade.
He was also a gifted animator and illustrator so it's not hard to imagine how something
so bizarre could have come from his imagination.
He had worked side-by-side with the local paper to orchestrate the sightings.
They used the hoax as a way to get Nantucket in the news and to promote his store which
was also located there and was called Tony Sarg's Curiosity Shop.
The sea serpent remained at the beach for several weeks, during which people came from
all over the country to see it.
A few months later the monster made the journey to Manhattan where it participated in the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Of course, this wasn't the first time people had been fooled by tales of sea monsters.
Even the famous Lochness surgeon's photo was eventually revealed to be a hoax.
Also, in 1934, a magazine from Berlin published photos claiming to show Nessie being captured.
According to the article, it was captured by a fishing vessel and taken alive to an
aircraft hangar in Edinburgh where it was going to be put on display.
The article turned out to be an April Fools joke.
In 1972, zoo workers from the UK claimed to have discovered the head of the Lochness Monster
floating in the lake but it turned out to simply be a dead, deformed seal that had been
planted there as yet another April Fools joke by one of their colleagues.
These are only a couple of examples but it just goes to show how popular these myths
are and how desperate people are to believe them.
Of course, there's also people who are sincere about their sightings and it's hard to dismiss
a phenomenon that seems ubiquitous across many different countries and cultures.
I think many real sightings are simply misidentifications.
People seeing eels or oarfish in the water and mistaking them for the necks and heads
of sea monsters.
Whale penises have even been thrown around as possible sources of misidentification,
which sounds like a joke, but if you actually look at the shape of them, it's not hard to
see how they can be mistaken for sea serpents from far away.
Of course, there's also those cases that involve multiple witnesses where there really isn't
a satisfying explanation.
Maybe some of the sightings are more than just cases of mistaken identity.
After all the ocean is huge, who knows what could be swimming in the depths of it?
If you liked this video, please subscribe to Crypticc for more.