Another sighting from the San Francisco Call newspaper in today's post, and this one isn't actually a spook..but a Sea Serpent that's been terrorizing a steamship! This appeared in the June 21st, 1909 copy but appears to have been taken originally from a Boston Herald report.
Sadly there were no illustrations with this one, hence the slightly older sea-serpent pic at the top there......but yeah, enjoy! :)
SEA SERPENT AND SHIP RACE AS MEN QUAKE
Monster Gives Sailors Greatest Scare Of Their Lives
Entered in the permanent log of the British steamship Meriddio, Captain Clark, is a record of a sea monster sighted while the ship was on a passage between Penarth and Santos. Chief Officer Neil S. Murray was in charge of the bridge at the time and a Greek quartermaster was at the wheel. The quartermaster, who first sighted the monster, was almost petrified with fear and was at the point of permitting the big freighter to take her own course.
"It was like this," explained the chief officer when the Meriddio docked at East Boston yesterday. "The ship was 500 miles from Santos. I saw the Greek acting strangely and followed the direction he was looking."
"My hair nearly stood on end at the sight. Swimming parallel to the ship was a monster lizard. It was big as a whale. The ocean fairly seethed as it propelled itself with enormous dragon's claws. A head as big as a pilot house and one coil of the beast's neck were above water."
"For a distance of nearly 300 feet the sea heaved and was lashed into foam. I think the lizard was fully the Meriddio's length, and I feared for the safety of the steamship as the creature, mailed in huge, bony scales of a dark green color, swerved as if to come alongside. It had a sawlike ridge on its back, and its girth was fully as great as that of a whale."
"After the serpent had raced the ship several minutes it humped its back and sounded. The swash from its commotion shook the ship and sent spray over the starboard rail."
"I have followed the sea many years and, mind you, I am not given to fancies. That creature so impressed me that I entered the incident in the scrap log, and later made a permanent record of it."
The Meriddio's crew substantiates Officer Murray, while the Greek quartermaster admits he did not recover from the shock for several days. ~ Boston Herald
Cool stuff! You know, the amount of calm and evocative detail given in the descriptions of the events makes it pretty clear (to me, at least) that *something* was out there.
ReplyDeleteOne has to wonder what it was.
Yeah, the thing I like about all these newspaper stories is that they give you the names of witnesses, places, ships, etc.
DeleteWhen I've got more time I might do a bit of research and find out if I can trace any of them and find out more about them!
But yeah, all the eyewitnesses seem fairly believable!