Photo:The first American sea serpent, reported from Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in 1639.
Source: Ellis, R. 1994. Monsters of the Sea. Robert Hale Ltd. Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain}
from Unmuseum
On August 6th, 1848, the Royal Navy frigate HMS Daedalus was cruising near the Cape of Good Hope when the Officer of Watch spotted an object in the sea. He drew the attention of the Captain and several crew members on deck to it. It was a large sea snake, or sea serpent, that they estimated to be sixty feet long, 15 inches in diameter, and moved through the sea with it’s head some four feet out of the water.
Strangely enough it seemed to be able to move quickly through the water with neither vertical or horizontal undulation. The creature was dark brown, shading to yellow-white under the throat. On the back there seemed to be a seaweed-like mane. The Daedalus observed it for about twenty minutes.
In 1937 Alfred Peterson, a nurse aboard a British troopship in the China Sea, spotted what at first he thought was a big tree floating in the sea. A few minutes later he noticed it was still there, keeping pace with the ship. This peaked his interest and he took a closer look. What he saw was a 25 foot long, grey-black, body with a head shaped like a giraffe.
Tales about sea serpents have been told and retold by sailors down through the ages. Skeptics have pointed out that many of these incidents could be the result of misidentifications. A floating log, or in the case of the Daedalus, an abandoned native canoe painted like a snake. Some encounters are so close, though, that it is hard to believe someone could be mistaken: . . . Read Complete Report
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SUNSET SQUID FIGHT – WIDESCREEN – 20,000 LEAGUES unseen Monster Sequence
from youtube
Uploaded by cyberlarry7 on Aug 12, 2010
The only surviving footage of the Sunset Squid sequence (shot by a documentary filmmaker) was in regular screen format. I wondered how it would have looked in widescreen (Leagues was shot in CinemaScope) – so I reformatted it into Letterbox. I think this is pretty close to how the sequence appeared originally, since the documentary cameraman was allowed to place his 16mm Bolex right alongside the ‘A’ Camera during his time on the set.
Top Comment:
To quote Walt Disney himself:
“What are you shooting here? A keystone comedy?”
That was what he said of this very scene.
