I have been looking for "sea monsters" for years.  In addition to just
     hanging around the water for years, swimming, diving and such, I have
     been at sea for well over 400 days playing oceanographer.  In all that
     time, which has included 58 submersible research dives, I haven't seen
     one unexplained monster yet.  Lots of dolphins, whales, big fishes and
     invertebrates, sea turtles, and sharks. My romantic side tells me that
     they (and aliens) must be out there, and as Dr. Rindsberg mentioned,
     Architeuthis (the kraken or kraxen of ancient Norse myth) is real.  I
     belong to that group of scientists who don't discard, out of hand, the
     "myth" of the sea monster.  For those of you interested in sea
     monsters, the hoaxes, the misidentifications, and "credible"
     sightings, there are several books around.
 
     One of the best is:   Heuvelmans, Bernard. 1968.  In the Wake of the
     Sea Serpent.  Hill and Wang, New York.  645p. (translated from the
     1965 French version).  The kraken is a whole chapter.
 
     Richard Ellis has written a book on sea monsters and he has another
     coming out on the giant squid around November.
 
     Heuvelmans has proposed the existence of several, distinct,
     yet-to-be-discovered beasts -- the super otter, the many-humped sea
     serpent, the many-finned sea serpent, the merhorse, a long-necked
     animal, a marine saurian, the super eel, and the mega-turtle.  For
     each, he gives distribution trends, anatomy, behavior, and size
     estimates, all based on what he feels were credible observations.  Of
     587 reports evaluated, only 279 (48%) were suspect, doubtful,
     incomprehensible, or were outright hoaxes.  Believe what you want to.
 
     And I've never seen the green flash, Andrew.
 
 
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: CRITERION FOR EXTINCTION?
Author:  "Andrew K. Rindsberg" <[log in to unmask]> at ~smtp
Date:    8/26/98 5:56 PM
 
 
A fantasy author (Larry Niven?) wrote a story showing that sea serpents
became extinct as a result of competition from whalers for their favorite
prey. That would explain all those early sightings, including some by
scientists, never to be repeated reliably in later years. ;->
 
When I was compiling literature for my doctoral thesis on San Clemente Basin
(a deep-sea basin west of San Diego, California), I found several references
to sea serpents there. The fishermen called it the "San Clemente Monster,"
and no, they were not referring to Richard Nixon! Well, I knew that sea
monsters were real enough. As soon as a sea monster is caught in a net or
washes up on the beach, it's given a proper scientific name and is removed
from the realm of myth. The giant squid Architeuthis was originally called a
sea monster, for instance. So I carefully looked at all of my trawled
samples for evidence of sea-monster skeletal parts. I found seastars,
brittlestars, and whole herds of walking sea-cucumbers ("sea pigs"), but no
whale or dolphin bones, let alone sea monster parts. Whales had dived under
the ship while we were working, and no sea monsters had shown up. I saw the
green flash at sunset, but no sea monsters. Dolphins played at the prow,
still no sea monsters. Despite the lack of hard evidence, I wrote up my
speculations on the San Clemente Monster in the draft of my thesis, partly
to see if my committee members were paying attention. No less than 3 out of
5 did notice and said that the San Clemente Monster had to go! None of them
found the typo in which I substituted a "v" for a "c" in "vulcanism", so I
suppose that they didn't read every word of my thesis. After incorporating
all their suggestions, the thesis doubled in length and had to be bound in
two volumes. The Graduate School didn't require extra payment for binding;
as the secretary put it, "It usually isn't the student's fault."
 
I don't suppose that this is the last word on sea serpents and extinction.
Considering the number of hours that shell collectors spend on the water,
I'd be surprised if none of you have a story about sea monsters to tell.
So, has any of you Conchlers ever sighted a sea monster?
 
Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama