San Francisco Sea Serpent

Jay Cooney and I were having a discussion about this sighting at the Zombie Plesiosaur Society and he indicated the witness drawing at top. I cut out just the black part showing above the surface and said "Looks like the two humped conformation with flippers tilted up on the far side" and Jay's reply was "Yes, I was actually just looking at that myself. Would support the idea of its [the prolonged "body" at the rear] being an illusion of the water with an unknown animal present." and I am pretty sure that was only the wake.
http://home.access4less.net/~sfseaserpent/
an excerpt describing this sighting posted by Tabitca for the CFZ included this information:
http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2010/04/san-francisco-bay-sea-serpent.html

in 1985 two brothers Robert and William Clark were sitting in a car near the sea wall. This is their story of their experiences and there is a link to their site at the end of the blog post where you can see stills of the film they took etc :

We have had 8 sightings of a sea serpent in San Francisco Bay during the period 1985-87. The first and closest sighting was only 20 yards away. We were parked in our car at 7:45 a.m. looking north at San Francisco Bay just east of the Golden Gate Bridge and west of Alcatraz Island. The water was dead calm and we saw some sea lions playing about 150 yards from us. We saw what we thought was another sea lion swimming towards them from the west. When it was a few yards away the head and neck raised out of the water at least 10 feet straight up. It then lunged forward and attacked the sea lions. The sea lions fled towards where we were parked with the creature following right behind them. We could see the creature create vertical undulations in its neck as it swam through the water. Then it went underwater. The sea lions swam right in front of us leaping in and out of the water in an attempt to escape the creature. We didn't know it until the next day when we examined the area at low tide but the sea lions swam over a ledge with rocks on it that protruded 20 yards into the bay. The water went from 40 feet deep to only 3 feet deep above the ledge. Suddenly, 20 yards in front of us we saw what looked like half a truck tire break the surface with a long neck and head just under the surface of the water in front of it. A second arch broke the surface of the water behind the first and then we watched what we thought was a huge black snake swim by but when we expected it to end it got wider. Then there was a splash and a crashing sound as it stopped dead in the water. Immediately, we saw it lift its neck quickly out of the water and it pulled itself backwards to get off the rocks. It splashed back into the water and disappeared. instantaneously, the rest of the neck came out of the water in a corkscrewing manner as it tried to pull itself off the rocks and into the deeper water. As it corkscrewed it exposed the midsection and the underbelly above the water and we got an excellent view. the midsection had hexagonal scales that did not overlap but were connected to each with a common side. They varied in size from the size of a dime to the size of a silver dollar.. We had 7 more sightings in the next 2 years and were able to get 6 photos.

In view of the scepticism they received , they issued the following challenge:

We (Bill and Bob Clark) have had several sightings of sea serpents in San Francisco Bay since 1985. On February 5, 1985 we saw a sea serpent beach itself only 20 yards from where we were parked in our car and we saw the entire animal expect the tail. On January 26, 2004 we took a 3 1/2 minute video which we claim contains images of several sea serpents swimming in SF Bay. We had 2 independent analyses of the video done. One was done by BSM Associates (expert image analyst Clifford Paiva and physicist Dr. Harold Slusher) and the second was done by marine biologist Bruce Champagne. Both analyses concluded that our video contains images of several large unknown serpentine marine animals swimming in SF Bay. We invite all skeptics to provide us with the expert of their choice who is willing to do an in-depth analysis of our video and we will send them a free copy. We only request that they agree not to post any portion of the video on the internet or anywhere else without our permission and if the conclusion of their analysis disagrees with the Paiva/Slusher analysis and the Champagne analysis that they provide us with their supporting documentation. We can be reached at our email address sfseaserpent9@hotmail.com.

 My comment was that the part of the sighting actually seen above the water was consistent with a Longneck and its behavior toward the sea lions was also consistent with other reports made previously in other places, including off Vancouver Island. And I suspected already then that the very long extended body was only the appearance caused by the disturbed water in the wake, and any appearance of humps in that disturbed water was only caused by waves in the water..

I was not convinced the sections of skin as mentioned actually represented scales as opposed to regular creases in the skin, something which has been reported in other cases especially at the joints around the flippers, and here the creases are often said to resemble an elephant's hide. The way the neck moved, the size of the neck, and the way that it curved over and struck at the sea lions, are all consistent with Longnecked Sea Serpent reports otherwise.

Jay Sees the Serpent too

Jay Michael Cooney

Saw some many-humped sea serpents on the lake today....appearing after a boat sped by ;)

Jay is making a reference to the fact that I consider nearly all "String of buoys" sightings to be reports of mere ambiguous waves in the water that merely look like a row of humps, frequently seen in boat wakes for example, but they can also be left in the wakes of whales and other sea animals. And I have witnessed the effect myself while I was staying in New Jersey and associated with the SITU on a long term basis, back in 1986.

 

The Leda Sea Serpent case was one where the humps clearly devolved into waves in a wake when seen from a different angle. The subsequent information was noted by Rupert T Gould.

 I consider Heuvelman's composite to be an unacceptable depiction of such a wake trailing after a head and dorsal fin that was clearly based on a close up sighting of an Orca by a witness that never expected to see such a creature stick its head up out of the water that way.

1855 Nova Scotia Sea Serpent Sighting

From the Facebook page Strange World, https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/strngeworld

Beadle’s Monthly carried a startling feature in November 1866: two drawings of a “great sea-monster” witnessed by the author, Jesse H. Lord, during a visit to Green Harbor, Nova Scotia, in August 1855. Lord recalled that he had just arrived... in town when he found the townspeople in a great commotion over “the snake.” Presently he saw a monster emerge from the sea, pursuing boats through a channel and into the harbor:
Near what might be the head, rose a hump, or crest, crowned with a waving mass of long pendulous hair like a mane, while behind, for forty or fifty feet, slowly moved, or rolled, the spirals of his immense snake-like body. The movement was in vertical curves, the contortions of the back alternately rising and falling from the head to the tail, leaving behind a wake, like that of a screw-steamer, on the glassy surface of the ocean. … In a moment he raised his head, from which the water poured in showers, and opening the horrid jaws he gave utterance to a noise resembling nothing so much as the hissing sound of steam from the escape-pipe of a boiler.
The beast withdrew, but Lord glimpsed it again beneath his rowboat the following morning:
The tide was ‘making,’ and the serpent lay head to the current, which was flowing into the harbor, keeping up an undulatory movement just sufficient to retain his position. The shell-like head was just abaft the stern of the boat and the immense mane flowed wavingly, either by the motion of the current or the convolutions of the body. … Hethcote moved silently to the stern and cut the rope that held the ‘kilick,’ and we drifted quietly with the tide into the harbor.
Lord was a journalist, not a short story writer, and Beadle’s presented his tale without a wink. But it seems most likely a simple hoax — why would a newsman withhold such a sensational story for 11 years? Unfortunately, we’ll never know the whole story: A few days after the article appeared, Lord shot himself on his wife’s grave.

Heuvelmans does not include this report in his book In The Wake of the Sea-Serpents, but he does mention several other repots around Nova Scotia in the 1850s. One of them was the very unusual "Marine Dimetrodon" that Heuvelmans could not classify, and another was a "Water Horse" no more than 16 feet long and 2 feet thick, seen by a father and son as it was coming on to the land. (William and Henry Crooks, page 232). It was thought to be propelled by four limbs underneath. Heuvelmans counts this as a "Longneck" (same as the Loch Ness Monster) but in fact a moose can be in the range of 12 feet long and 2 1/2 to 3 feet thick at the belly, and that part would have been harder to judge on a swimming animal. I am willing to say that all of these sightings except the problematic "Marine Dimetrodon" were swimming mooses, typically generating a wake of 50 feet long as a "String-of-buoys." The "Marine Dimetrodon" was probably a kind of fish and exaggerated (as Heuvelmans notes there are contradictory aspects to the description) and perhaps it is better to assume it is an Oarfish until and unless better evidence is uncovered.
Lord's sea-serpent would have been unrecognisable except that the illustration clearly and prominently shows the beard or "Bell" characteristic of the moose under its lower jaw.

 

Advertisement for sculpture, very good for scale.

 

Moose in Grand Teton National Park. I had mentioned earlier in reference to the Von Ferry sighting of 1746 that a moose could have a contrasting white mane, and here is a photo of one such example.

American Master-Otter

This is a video said to have been taken on Lake Iliamna and said to be an ordinary river otter. As I make out the scale, it is at least twice the size of an ordinary river otter (it is also quite specifically NOT a sea otter). I think this type has been filmed several times inThe UK (not for certain at Loch Ness so far), Scandinavia and Russia near the Baltic sea, and possibly in other places, possibly including Lake Champlain. Generally it is like a common otter but at least twice the dimensions.  Below are some comparisons with other typical "Water Monsters"as they are commonly reported.

I imagine the stretch between the head and the tail part is in the realm of five to six feet. And this is not two otters in a line either: the head is too big and the head end and tailend are proportionate to each othe. The whole creature is verthe swimming moose with its hump-train, but as we shall see it is a common thing for the two to be confounded and called the same creature. Below: the traditional creature called a water panther or underwater cat, it seems comparable to the Master-Otter but with the occasional addition of the large rack of antlers (as below). Those antlers would really be because of mistakenly lumping them in with Swimming Mosse sightings, at such times when the two types of sightings occurred together in the same geographic area.(the otter below has a broadened tail)

Underwater panther, Great Lynx, The fabulous night panther, Great under-water wildcat, Great underground wildcat, Gitche-anahmi-bezhe, Gichi-anami'e-bizhiw, Mishibizhiw, Mishipizhiw, Mishipizheu, ...

The Underwater panther is powerful creature in the native American folklore.

Underwater panthers are described as water monsters that live in opposition to the Thunderbirds, masters of the powers of the air.

Underwater panther was an amalgam of features from many animals: the body of a wild feline, often a mountain lion or lynx; the horns of deer or bison; upright scales on its back; occasionally bird feathers; and parts from other animals as well, depending on the particular legend.

Underwater panthers are represented with exceptionally long tails, occasionally with serpentine properties.

The creatures are thought to roar or hiss in the sounds of storms or rushing rapids...

Extra:

http://bit.ly/Jf7DMP

http://bit.ly/K2a3Nh

http://bit.ly/bb0Eei

http://bit.ly/J5iUuk

http://bit.ly/JGxj4k

http://bit.ly/M5v7Ci


http://www.scoop.it/t/they-were-here-and-might-return/p/1810394623/underwater-panther-great-lynx-the-fabulous-night-panther-great-under-water-wildcat-great-underground-wildcat-gitche-anahmi-bezhe-gichi-anami-e-bizhiw-mishibizhiw-mishipizhiw-mishipizheu


http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/native-american-indian-animal-spirits-night-panther/

Native American Indian Animal Spirits: Night Panther

Name: Water Panther (or Underwater Panther)

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Tribal affiliation: Ojibwe, Algonquin, Ottawa, Menominee, Shawnee, Cree

Native names: Mishibizhiw, Mishibizhii, Mishipeshu, Mishipizheu, Mishibijiw, Mishipizhiw, Mshibzhii, Mshibzhiw, Mishipizhiw, Misipisiw, Mishipiishiiw, Messibizi, Missipissy, Mitchipissy, Michipichi, Mishibizhi, Michipizhiw, Mishupishu, Mishepishu, Michipeshu, Misibizhiw, Michipichik, Msipissi, Msi-Pissi, Msipessi, Missibizi, Michi-Pichoux, Gichi-anami’e-bizhiw, Gitche-anahmi-bezheu, Nampeshiu, Nampèshiu, Nampe’shiu, Nambi-Za, Nampeshi’kw, Nambzhew, Naamipeshiwa, Namipeshiwa, Nah-me-pa-she, Peshipeshiwa, Manetuwi-Rusi-Pissi, Manetúwi Msí-Pissí, Maeci-Pesew, Matc-Piseo, Wiä’bskinit Mätc Pis’eu

Pronunciation: Varies by dialect: usually mih-shih-bih-zhew or mih-shih-bih-zhee in Anishinabe, and nahm-bee-zhuh in Potawatomi

Also known as: Great Lynx, Water Lynx, Night Panther, Matchi-Manitou, Underground Panther, Underneath Panther

Type: Monster, water spirit, panther

Related figures in other tribes: True Tiger (Miami-Illinois)

The Water Panther is a powerful mythological creature something like a cross between a cougar and a dragon. It is a dangerous monster that lives in deep water and causes men and women to drown. The legends of some tribes describe Water Panther as the size of a real lynx or mountain lion, while in others, the beast is enormous. Water Panther has a very long prehensile tail which is often said to be made of copper[or else horns said to be made of copper-DD]. Details of the monster vary from community to community, but in many stories, Water Panthers are described as furry with either horns or deer antlers and a sharp saw-toothed back

Source: native-languages

Below is a gallery of representations for the Water-Panther(from a google photo search): the basic animal is reasonable enough, an otter the size of a big cat. The representation of Horns probably was another description of the ears(Costello would certainly agree with that) and the appearance of (Armoured) scales on the body and spines along the back are probably due to locks of fur sticking together. This description also occurs in Iceland and in Africa with the Dingonek. These features can also occur  in South American Water Tiger reports probably based on the (known) Giant river otter. Note that some depictions include the longitudinal leaf-shaped tail fin and occasionally a stinger in the tail. I imagine actually the ("Alligator") mound, 2nd down,  representation comes closest to depicting the real beast's proportions.

This last imporssion of an enormous beast with antlers is doubtless based on the Water-Horse: ie, a swimming moose with a "String of buoys" in its wake causing the observer to believe it is the prolonged body of a serpentine animal.

Just for reference, here is the track of the South American Giant otter:

-Which roughly match the description of the tracks attributed to some African "Water-Lions" and "Water-leopards"

What Is Nessie REALLY?

In his preliminary analysis of the reports of the Loch Ness Monster done as a prelude to his first trip to Loch Ness, Tim Dinsdale came up with a number of statistical abstractions. His results in the category of hump sightings for example, break down into rough thirds (at a diminishing quantity per each third) for two humps, one hump or three humps (roughly half each out of that third) and then for multiple humps up to as many as a dozen in a row. Dinsdale's drepiction of the different categories of humps is illustrated in his figure 2 reprinted above. Mackal's 1976 analysis for a larger number of sightings in the same location also give about the same statistics, but Mackal discounts all reports of humps consisting of more than six in number as being due to standing waves. This is the first major break in the analysis of reports. Shortly before this, Heuvelmans' In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents had come out, and it mentions in the text that the "String of buoys" categories Many-humped and Super-otter were based on mistaken observations counting the wake as the body of the creature, and he also mentions that explanation as a confusion in the Longnecked category.

Indeed Roy Mackal printed the second illustration following in his book on the Loch Ness Monster on the famous sighting he had previously documented in his earlier book on the Great Sea Serpent. The game should have been up at that point because it showed once and for all that what people were describing as a long string of humps was actually an illusion caused by the waves forming in the wake of an object moving in the water. Experiments would also show that you get much the same effect from any number of different causes so long as you basically have the same sort of a wake.
Because of this you have string of buoys wakes being left by fishes and whales of various sizes and also by boats. and the row of hump-ripples can be as small as a few feet long or seemingly stretch for miles. Adding the number of sightings from Dinsdale that are merely described as wakes to the assorted hump sightings makes the category the decided majority of Loch Ness Monster cases.

The conclusion to be drawn was clear. NONE of the string-of buoys reports were to be trusted and even the more basic reports of one to three humps would have to be scrutinized before they would be fit to call reliable evidence. The entire string of buoys categories of Heuvelmans' sea serpents would have to be dropped. At the same time, one of the demonstrable causes of the string of buoys wake effect was the Longnecked sea serpent, as in the fifth drawing down from the top in Dinsdale's fig 2. In which case the determininative characteristic for the creature was the long neck and not the humps

This early set of sightings at Loch Ness emphasizes the reports that are actually caused by wave actione could still have been causing that wave action.

Determining sightings of the type statistically also put several of the sightings featuring a small head and large body together, with or without also mentioning the long neck as well. These reports were statistically consistent world-wide as shown by different comparable analyses done for each location separately. However the string-of-buoys reports were also alarmingly consistent statistically and they also turned out to be world-wide in distribution. The Plesiosaur-shaped pattern did prove to be consistent and an analysis of only the Longnecked category reports of Heuvelmans also resulted in much the same statistics. But it began to become apparent that worldwide and in any large number of reports, the reports specifying the long neck observations were in the minority. Several locations (including Lake Okanogon) had very few or no verifiable reports of long necked "Periscopes" over a yard or two long, and it also became obvious that even at Loch Ness they were not a consistent feature of reports at all times. At Loch Ness, long periods could go by when no observations of "Periscopes" would be made at all and when they did occur, the observations tended to come in bundles together.

Nessie from Scotland and Nahelito from Argentina. In both cases the heads of the creatures have been said to be pieces of wood, but this comparison DOES go to show that the reports of the type are remarkably similar worldwide

Taking the raw statistics alone it seems that in the long run and worldwide the consistent pattern IS the string-of-buoys series of reports and that category should be regarded as the background noise that researchers should be aware contaminates all collections of data we have on record. As such it must be emphasized that what most people have meant historically by the terms "Sea-serpent", "Ogopogo", "Nessie", "Champ" and so on has been the standing wave phenomenon, ie, the background noise reports and not the legitimate "Creature" reports at all.
On the other hand, many experts have been making estimations about "The Creature" that was supposed to be at the bottom of all of these reports. In the examples below, each of the experts had made a SeaSerpent model that was supposed to have included a population (or only stray individuals) that wandered  into Loch Ness.

These reconstructions are by Oudemans, Sanderson and Dinsdale in chronological order from top to bottom. They are all basically rather similar except for the ever-shrinking length of the body and the tail. That great length was categorically stated to account for the lengthy reported trains of humps, the effects of the waves in the wake. That was the mistaken effect of taking all of the reports together and NOT excerpting the background noise out of the main body of reports.

Below is Dinsdale's reconstruction for the Loch Ness Monster (leaving the humps off) and below that are my own comparable Longnecker reconstructions. An excerpt from Gould's book explaining his reconstruction is below, and it siffers from Dinsdale's mainly in having a longer tail (Gould directly states this is to account for some of the "String of buoys" reports) And at the bottom there is one of the reports from Gould allegedly showing the shape of the humps changing on the creature's back. This may be due to the type of flexible (boneless) fatty hump on the back that Bernard Heuvelmans describes in his discussion on the LongNecked Sea-Serpent.

http://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/2012/04/the-first-book-on-the-loch-ness-monster/

Currently there just might be some new  Longnecker sightings at Loch Ness but we seem to be coming out of a long dry spell for sightings. For many years the most common "Nessie" sightings seem to have been mistaken observations of wakes and other objects once again.

"Sea Monster" Photographed In Northern Argentina

The following photograph came from the area of Tafí in Tucumán province, NW Argentina. I would have assumed it was a writhing anaconda being swept along by the flood but the area is fairly high altitude and fairly cool, averaging about 70 degrees Farenheit year-round (summer average temperature about 25 degrees Centigrade, winter temperatures about 15 degrees). And so it is not really the kind of climate you'd expect anacondas in.

Sea Monster

I hiked along the river in Tafi and kept seeing this very strange current that looked like the humps of a serpentine sea monster!!! I don't know what it was...definitely something unnatural, maybe supernatural?

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/8475850

http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/blog-120709.html

This was originally posted in "Siesta is Obligatory"

User's name is Natalie/Gordita: I have not been successful in contacting her yet. I contacted Blogger and I was told I needed to contact her directly to get permission to use the photo, but at that time TravelBlog did not seem to have any record of the photo or how to get in touch with her. I will of course always take the photo down if she denies me permission, but my impression is that it qualifies as "Fair Use"

--Anacondas are also usually marked with conspicuous black spots all over the sides and this object?/creature? does not show anything like that. It looks too flexible to be a branch or a tree trunk. And so until somebody comes foreward and says it actually is an unusual anaconda in unusual conditions, I'd be inclined to call it an unknown Giant eel, swimming on its side as Heuvelmans said that they do. Whatever it is, it is a highly valuable photo in that it shows ANYTHING swimming in traditional "Sea-serpent" up-and-down-serpentine-style. That is actually something very unusual to see and not known in anacondas otherwise, so far as the sources state.

Best Wishes, Dale D.