The Saga of the Sea Serpent
QUIET COTTAGES
CLOSE TO BEACH
Sailors see 'em but scientists scoff
Book Commentary by George W. Earley
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I
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URSULA ULRICH
R ELIEF T IL E S A I D STEPPING STORES
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marine animals.
S o . . . do I recommend Ellis' book? Yes I do. In
M o n s te rs o f th e Sea we have the firs t really detailed
look at the possible existence of sea monsters since
Bernard Heuvelmans' In th e W ake o f the Sea
S e rp e n ts appeared in 1965 [American edition from Hill
& Wang, 1969, long out of print but well w orth hunting
fo r]. Ellis may be a bit of a skeptic but he’s done a good
piece o f work and even long-time water monster buffs
hand descriptions. They more than complement the
te x t -- they're an integral and indispensable part of the
hnnk
book.
The oceans of our world are wide and deep. Even
today we are discovering new species in them and we
will continue to do so; to paraphrase the H -F lle s : The
a m o Q P tp te w
„Y IH A S T O R IA
u
ahp p y i m n U
world.
If you saw the Disney version of Jules Verne's
20 ,8 0 0 Leagues B e n e a th th e Sea, you've likely not
forg otten th a t breath-taking battle with giant squid,
one of the finest monsters ever crafted by Hollywood's
talented technicians. Disney's creature [he showed
only one whereas Verne had the Nautilus assailed by a
dozen or more, but then it is far cheaper to w rite about
monsters than to build them fo r a film ] was patterned
a f te r Architeuthis, specimens of which went aground
between 1870-90 on beaches as fa r apart as New
Zealand, Ireland, Norway and the Newfoundland coast of
Canada. Tail to tentacle tip, some of those stranded
squid measured 60 fe e t long! Monstrous, indeed.
Architeuthis, writes Ellis, is normally a very deep
sea creature whose surface appearances seem to take
place only when they are dying. But take no com fort
from that. Other squid, considerably smaller than
A rchiteu this but still larger than humans, actively seek
prey in the Pacific . . . underwater photographer Alex
Kerstich was attacked by three 5-foot-long Humboldt
squid in 1991 while filming a shark hunt o ff the coast of
Mexico. A fte r stripping some items of scuba equipment
from him, the squid fled, leaving a badly shaken swimmer.
While no squid attacks have been officially register
ed along the Oregon coast, the squid are there, we do
lose swimmers from time to time and who is to say one
or another of them may not have not been taken by a
hungry squid? [My speculation, not Ellis’s.]
But M o n s te rs o f th e Sea is more than a book of
such of spielbergian horrors as giant squid and swimmer
gobbling sharks; it’s a quietly exciting survey of once-
mythical sea monsters th a t have moved from legend to
biology book as well as the accepted 'm onsters;' sharks
and octopi. There are even chapters on their biology
which will help you b etter understand them.
As Ellis points out, we now know th a t what we
once called Leviathan are the Great Whales. The Norse
Kraken has been indentified as the giant squid while
mermaids are really manatees.
Also discussed are a variety of reliably reported
unknowns, m ystery creatures not y e t resident in
aquariums, museums and zoology books but which
apparently live com fortably in the oceans th a t cover
60% of earth's surface.
One chapter, Blobs and Globsters, looks at s ta n
dings of giant masses of flesh [estim ated weights of
several tons] which apparently are from some of those
unknown sea animals. The 'official' scientific line is that
these huge fleshy masses were somehow detached from
whales but neither their appearance nor the few
laboratory tests seem to ju stify such an identification.
It seems clear th a t a number of yet-unknown creatures
live deep below the ocean surface.
But while adm itting those 'blobs and globsters' are
puzzlingly unknown, Ellis remains skeptical o f "sea ser
pents" per se and makes a pretty good case th a t some
18th and 19th century sighting reports were miside-
tif¡cations of the then-unknown giant squid. However,
when his skepticism leads him to assume trained natur
alists would attrib ute features to a sighted unknown
th a t w eren't actually there, I think his skepticism over
reaches the evidence. In short, I think some 'm onster'
reports represent real but still scientifically unclassified
1 will find much th a t is worthwhile here.
And before I forget them, a word about the illus
trations: superb! A number are by Ellis, others are con
tem porary drawings made scores to hundreds o f years
ago by eyewitnesses or by artists working from firs t-
UVFLR LEFT EML M Y I7Î5
È IS T R O
since time immemorial.
His opening chapters cover "a Variety of Scaled,
Serpentine, Anthropophagous and Otherwise Terrifying
Creatures" said by seafaring men and others to inhabit
the waters of "the Seven Seas and Elsewhere." I sus
pect fo r most readers this book will be their first indica
tion of how many kinds of 'sea monsters' are alleged to
have been disporting themselves in the oceans of the
Wash and wear our cotton shirt emblazoned
with the seed syllable Hung; drawn by
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again.
Ellis, a world-class marine artist, here takes a com
prehensive look at reports of the Great Sea Serpent
and other aquatic unknowns th a t have been reported
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reader?
Well, ju st when you thought it was safe to go back
into the water, here comes Richard Ellis with M o n s te rs
o f th e Sea [Alfred A. Knopf; 1994; $30 . . . and worth
it] which ju st m ight scare you right back onto the shore
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Unknowns Are Out There.
Enjoy your sum m er. . . but swim cautiously! • • •
fc/c/e/SXS/c/c/Q^
George W. Earley has had a lifelong interest in sea monsters
as well as other 'unknowns.' His book reviews appear in a
variety of publications including UFO magazine, The Gate and,
occasionally, even The Oregonian. His house stands atop a
glacial moraine near Mount Hood, safely away from sea
serpents and other aquatic unknowns.
© 1995 by George W. Earley, all rights reserved
A