Kabagon

 Kabagon

By Cole Herrold

The oceans while beautiful are frankly a terrifying place. Since the dawn of time, there have been rumors of all sorts of colossal critters and haunting entities that have allegedly made their home in the dark depths. These entities range in description from the colossal multi-tentacled ship destroyer the Kraken to the long tadpole-like Hook Island Sea Serpent. Yet of all the entities reported in the ocean perhaps one of the eeriest is the ones that bear a strong resemblance to humans or mammals such as the Ningen. On July 18, 1971, the Mainichi Daily News would report a similar eerie humanoid or mammalian-type entity that would peer out from the water.

It was on August 28, 1971, that Captain Miyagi Kimura and 25 other crew members of the 28^th Konpira Maru, a 235-ton tuna long-line fishing boat from Onagawa, in the Miyagi prefecture were sailing in the Pacific Ocean near the South Island of New Zealand casting their lines into the ocean. Their exact position based on the ship’s logbook was 44.15 degrees South Latitude and 173.34 East Longitude, 25 miles SE of Lyttelton. The water they traversed reached a depth of about 40 meters. It was 12 o clock, and the day was bright, and the conditions were fine as a sweet northern breeze blew and the water was seemingly placid that was until their attention was drawn to a strange disturbance in the water near them. The crew watched in awe and confusion as a brownish-gray figure started to emerge from the deep. The figure a large mound of folded flesh some 5 ft tall was fitted with a pair of large eyes each about six inches in diameter and two large nostrils (or as some of the other art depictions show another set of eyes) located just below it. They noted that this ball of flesh was clearly the semi-submerged skull of some colossal creature and decided to attempt to capture the creature. The crew stopped their fishing adventures and began to man the harpoons. Some of the crew including the captain continued to stare at the creature which to them seemed very similar to a deformed hippopotamus particularly in the area of the nose yet they knew that this creature could not be one of those since they tend to dwell mostly in fresh water and live exclusively in Africa. The captain proceeded to draw the creature and even decided to coin the beast Kabagon after the Japanese word for hippo ‘Kaba’. The creature however, later on, would also be called the Bug-Eyed Monster or BEM They then altered the course of the boat and as they got within 30 meters of the creature it suddenly possibly sensing the danger it was in proceeded to disappear into the briny deep. The crew was left speechless and disappointed at the elusiveness of their quarry and kept the story to themselves until they returned home to Yaizu Port, Shizuoka prefecture where the crew proceeded to tell their account. However, before the crew returned to tell about their encounter a weekly magazine in New Zealand released that on the Lyttelton Peninsula that a strange series of footprints were found. The Mainichi Daily News would propose that these footprints were caused by the strange creature.

As with almost all Fortean cases, one needs to entertain that there is the chance of hoaxing. Outside of just making up a story, there’s not much to point in this direction. Yet there is an interesting parallel that could point to this being the case. Horror, Sci-Fi, and other Exploitation film fans might be quick to notice that Kabagon bears a strong resemblance outside of just its name to Japanese Kaiju films. The overall appearance of the creature is almost identical to Hedorah the giant smog monster that appeared in Godzilla Vs. Hedorah or as titled here in the US Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster. To add to this the film was theatrically released on July 24, 1971. Four days after the sighting was reported however trailers for the film was certainly released before that day. It is very possible that members of the crew had seen the trailer and proceeded to create an encounter resolving around a beast similar in appearance to Hedorah. Yet this is all speculation.

Another possibility is that this creature could have been misidentified the eyewitness sketch does bear some resemblance to known animals even though it may seem goofy. The closest animal to the Kabagon in appearance would be a female walrus and even the original Pursuit breakdown of the case quickly pointed to this as a possibility. However, the article also says that this would be highly unlikely as walruses in general are found in the arctic and subarctic areas of the planet and not in the warm waters of New Zealand. Another problem is that the creature’s head was 5ft alone and the crew had no way of measuring the rest of the creature which clearly would have been at least 3x bigger than that, so an estimate of about say 20-30 ft, which would be bigger than any currently living walrus or pinniped. As walruses tend to have a max size of about 12 ½ ft and even then the females; which Kabagon is more similar in appearance to, are much smaller. Another thing is if the tracks found on the beach of the peninsula were caused by the creature and it was indeed a kind of pinniped it would not be so much as classic tracks as we would associate with a primate or cervine but that there would also be body drag marks or almost semi-destroyed tracks from the movement of the creature. It's from this that it would seem unlikely that what was seen by the crew was a known pinniped or pinniped at all.

Eyewitness Sketch of Kabagon as it appeared in Pursuit

A possibility most people like to go with when discussing this creature is the cryptid possibility. Obviously, there are animals slightly similar in appearance to the creature except that the form seems to be more pinniped or humanoid-like, yet none are an exact match. In cryptozoological circles, there are several entities and theories that could explain what we are seeing or are very similar to what was reported. Unsurprisingly most of these creatures were reported by Japanese sailors. The most famous of which would be the Ningen a colossal humanoid type creature that is human-like in its face and arms, but the rest of its form is like a white whale. Now a lot of the reports and images of this creature are hoaxes so there is some debate if this is a real cryptid or if this is some creepypasta-style creation. The other similar creature is a colossal critter reportedly seen in Antarctica and dubbed by the ship's captain Matsumoto in 1958 as “Antarctic Godzilla”. The creature appeared in his book Antarctic Transportation and was described as again a hippopotamus-type creature but again with other features as it was described as having a cow-like face, monkey-like head, large ears, large shoulders, dark brown hair, and a noticeable dorsal fin. The creature was noticeably colossal in size and originally was mistaken for a large barrel by some of the crew before they noticed its face. So large mammalian sea cryptids are not exactly unheard of and could be the same type or similar type of creatures.

A popular theory and one that I personally subscribe to in some reports is the Seal Serpent Hypothesis. This is a theory put out there as a more plausible answer to reports of cryptids that seem to be living plesiosaurs. In the theory, it is proposed that over time a group of seals developed a longer neck to basically fill in the niche that was left open after the plesiosaurs went extinct and therefore through convergent evolution developed a similar form. It’s from this I propose that Kabagon may have been some variation of this built for the warmer waters. It would have the hairless build of say a sea lion or elephant seal and could still have the large eyes and nostrils one would expect from a marine mammal but would simply be colossal in build. There are countless photos of seals and sea lions doing similar behavior as Kabagon and we can extend this as well to members of Sirenia like manatees and dugongs. Of course, this theory has never been proven and is more of a kind of thought experiment and therefore speculation.

Something that is not discussed usually with this case is the idea that this creature bears some resemblance to a particular Yokai the Umibozu. These entities are described as the spirits or ghosts of drowned Buddhist monks or manifestations of the ocean itself they often manifest as giant heads either human-like or monstrous most of the time bald or with some hair to the side, yet other forms and sizes are reported. Most of the depictions of them in art are of a giant dark-colored form with large eyes. This is almost exactly what the crew was witnessing. I am not here to claim that all Umibozu are actually misidentified Kabagon however I offer the counterargument. When immigrants from other countries enter a new location we often see in a short period of time that the faeries and creatures from their native countries start appearing in the countries where they now reside. The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods are a prime example and the same goes for family banshees now seen in West Virginia or the Tommyknockers of Pennsylvania. Perhaps there’s something about these entities that will cause them to follow people to other countries and manifest only to them or there’s something about the people themselves and their beliefs that can result in these entities appearing whether any of the crew were Shinto believers is however unconfirmed and again this is all speculation.

Another possibility for this creature could be that it is an Undine or some other aquatic fae the image of the Kabagon is also very similar to a painting of the Nokken an aquatic faerie and aggressive water spirit from Scandinavia. The world has countless areas known for such spirit-like beings or paranormal entities that perhaps what the crew was seeing was not something from their own country or something that followed them but instead something that was an elemental for that specific area. Whether the area of New Zealand has folklore of something similar to Kabagon however or tales of something lurking in the area, however, I currently am unaware of any.

Just what Kabagon is we can only guess as currently, no one else has reported a sighting similar or in the area since 71’. Yet that does not mean that this is the last of it. Our ocean’s are colossal and are filled with tons of places to hide and are full of creatures we know we haven’t discovered yet. We are certain that there are more undiscovered creatures in our oceans than what are on land. Most will certainly be small and strange, yet some will be colossal, and perhaps if Kabagon is real, even stranger.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammalian Sea creature (probably a Pinniped or member of Sirenia)

Location: Pacific Ocean, 44.15 degrees South Latitude and 173.34 East Longitude, 25 miles SE Lyttelton, South Island, New Zealand

Sighted: April 28, 1971

Works Cited Page:

Pursuit No. 18 April 1972

“A Bug Eyed Monster Off New Zealand” Malcolm’s Cryptid Blogspot. malcolmscryptids.blogspot.com/2022/10/a-bug-eyed-monster-off-new-zealand.html. Accessed 2/12/2023

 

Hook Island Sea Serpent

 Hook Island Sea Serpent

By Cole Herrold

There are very few pieces of Cryptozoological evidence out there that have lasted the test of time. Often many of them are debunked, proved to be misidentified, or are examples of pareidolia. While we cannot expect clear photos for every cryptid encounter like the Sandra Mansi Champ photo or the Patterson Gimlin Film, there are some photos that just seem to be too good, and this leads into controversy. One of perhaps the most famous and controversial pieces of evidence of all time was a series of photos that were taken off Hook Island by Robert Le Serrec. These photos are stone-cold classics in the world of cryptozoology and are a toss-up as while many researchers feel the photos are hoaxes; others continue to think that there is something real and tangible just below the surface.

On December 12, 1964, Breton Photographer Robert Le Serrec might have captured one of the best pieces of evidence for the existence of an aquatic cryptid we would call a sea serpent. Le Serrec, his family, and his Australian friend Henk De Jong were shipwrecked on the Great Barrier Reef and decided that during this time that, they would purchase a motorboat and spend about three months on Hook Island. While out one day near Stonehaven Bay, Le Serrec’s wife noticed a dark form seemingly resting on the bay floor and proceeded to bring the figure to the attention of the rest of the party. The group, upon coming close to the object which at the time they thought was a mere 30ft but as they came withing shocking closeness they noticed in utter horror that it was a strange unknown creature. The group having more courage than arguably they should, proceeded to take a series of photos, each more interesting than the last. They were shocked at what was below the waters for the creature they photographed in the waters of Stonehaven Bay around Hook Island in Queensland, Australia, had an appearance similar to a black tadpole or American eel. The creature had eyes located either on the top or near the sides of the head with slit-like pupils and had an incredibly long smooth serpentine body that was black in color with brown transverse stripes. The most incredible aspect of this is that the creature, however, is not arguably its appearance, but instead of its initial 30ft length, the creature turned out to be an astounding 70-80ft long. One member of the party or another individual had managed to take a boat out towards the tail of the creature, and this gave a sense of just how colossal the creature was. It was in this position that they noticed a large pale region which they thought was a wound that was visible on the right side of the tail. Le Serrec and Henk De Jong were completely perplexed by this creature and, thinking that the creature was dead, decided that they would film it underwater. The two had just started to film the creature when the creature, in a sudden change of pace, began to move. The two watched in utter horror as the creature opened its mouth, revealing a white mouth and throat, and proceeded to move towards them; half expecting that they would be consumed by the colossal monstrosity, they began to swim back to the assumed safety of the boat and began to clamor ashore, and as they turned to look back into the water to see if the creature was hot on their heels they were surprised and relieved that the creature had disappeared. As the group was rationalizing their thoughts, they felt that the creature was resting in the bay because of the wound to its tail, which they felt might have been caused by a ship's propeller.

In March of 1965, Le Serrec, in Australia's Everyone magazine, came forward with the photographs of the serpent and proceeded to tell the tale of how he caught it on camera. It was around this time that the claimed photos and story caught the attention of Cryptozoologists Ivan T. Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans. Ivan T. Sanderson heard about the case in February of that year as Le Serrec had initially attempted to sell the photos to several media outlets, yet these outlets would not give him the price he had wanted. Sanderson, however, would later write about the photos in an article for True Magazine. After this, the case was written about by both researchers as well as other cryptozoologists years later, such as Loren Coleman and Karl Shuker. The general consensus is that the photos are more than likely a hoax; however, some researchers to this day do think that there might be something more to the footage.

Now there is some controversy over this footage, as with just about any cryptozoological evidence, and this deals much less with the photos themselves and more around Robert Le Serrec. As time went on, when researchers Loren Coleman and Bernard Heuvelmans investigated Le Serrec and the Hook Island Photos, they had found some issues with Le Serrec’s character and the possibility of talks of creating a hoax. In their books In the Wake of the Sea Serpent and Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep, the two-state Le Serrec was in great debt. In fact, during the time the photos were taken, Le Serrec had left France to go and avoid his creditors and that Le Serrec was even wanted by Interpol, and Heuvelmans, in general, felt that he was not very trustworthy. Heuvelmans would later discover as well that Le Serrec, in 1959, had allegedly told several friends in France that he was about to go away on an expedition and “another thing in reserve which will bring in a lot of money… it’s to do with the sea serpent”. Adding to these seemingly damning character traits and backstory, Heuvelmans, upon looking at the photos, felt that there were problems in regard to the anatomy of the creature since the eyes of the creature appear from what we can tell near the top of the head and not near the side or closer to the snout. Yet there are species out there with eye placements similar to the creature.

Ivan Sanderson felt that the photos were most likely hoaxed and felt that “the object was either a plastic bag used by the US Navy “for experiments in towing petrol” or a deflated skyhook balloon which had become covered in weed, or a roll of cloth which had been tied together in places." Heuvelmans had his own idea as to just what was the answer to the photos Heuvelmans thought that the creature in the photo was a carefully shaped expanse of plastic sheeting weighed down with sand into the form of a colossal serpent. When one looks at the close-up photos of the head, researchers like Darren Naish point out that one can see covering four certain portions of it as though someone had “placed handfuls of sand on top of the edge of the creature: exactly what you would do if trying to weight down a monster-shaped sheet of plastic." Yet Le Serrec would claim that this was because the creature had slightly buried itself in the sand. Other researchers later had pointed to a possible shoal of fish, yet there are several problems with this since there were close-up photos, as well as the fact that while fish shoals can form basic shapes, they do not stay in these shapes for long periods of time, and in such a complex shape, all of this tends to point to one of two possibilities either some sort of material shaped and placed as a hoax or a biological creature.

While Sanderson and Heuvelmans were very certain that the creature was a hoax, they both entertained as well the possibility that the creature may have been real. Sanderson, for example, later on, felt that "the creature might be a giant synbranchid or swamp eel. Synbranchids are long-bodied acanthomorph teleosts, mostly of freshwater and estuarine habitats, well known for their ability to breathe air and undertake terrestrial excursions”. Synbranchids, however, are exceptionally small, however, usually being about 60 cm long, so if the Hook Island photos are an example of this, it would be the largest example known. Heuvelmans, however, was arguably more certain than Sanderson that the creature was a hoax and said should this creature be authentic, it could be "some kind of gigantic eel-like selachian." Paleontologist and Cryptid Enthusiast Darren Naish felt the reason he chose this possibility is due to a possible connection to sightings of an incredibly long-bodied shark. Another possibility often pointed to for another answer to the Hook Island Serpent is mastodonsauroid temnospondyls, a Triassic and Jurassic amphibian, yet the problem with this hypothesis would be the creature's lack of limbs.

One cannot help but mention that Heuvelmans created nine different categories in which different sea serpent and lake monster sightings could be categorized as. Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe would also utilize and update this for their own book, fixing some of the discrepancies and problems with Heuvelmans original model. Of the original 9, however, there was one category of a sea serpent which curiously is very similar in shape to the Hook Island Sea Serpent but is described as the Yellow Belly. Essentially it is, as the name suggests, a yellow-bellied tadpole-shaped creature with brown stripes along the back and a tannish-green colored body. Some researchers feel that Le Serrec, if he hoaxed the serpent chose the design of the creature from this entry, yet this is not possible, seeing as how the publication of Heuvelmans book was four years after Le Serrec took the photos. Other researchers felt that Heuvelmans included this entry solely because of the Le Serrec photos, but obviously, this was not to be the case since the appearance does not match really. Heuvelmans based the Yellow-Bellied type of Sea Serpent on a sighting aboard the ship Nestor in 1876, which took place in-between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Now I must say I have problems with the hoax aspect of the Hook Island Sea Serpent case. For one thing, to pull off a hoax of a creature this size, it would take a great deal of time and energy. With a hoax of this caliber, one would think that someone would have seen them creating it. Now granted, Hook Island is basically uninhabited with some exceptions and is a national park, so perhaps if this was a hoax, it was done in a much more secluded area to avoid notice, but by creating a creature in the water as large as the sea serpent, it would stand to reason that someone would have seen them stretching out the balloon or bag and packing it in the sand. Also, as with other famous pieces of footage like the Patterson Gimlin Film, there are always people who come from the woodwork to claim that they were involved or that they caused the footage, and with this set of photos, nobody, as far as I’m aware came forward, and Le Serrec continued to state the film and footage’s authenticity. We can add this even to Le Serrec’s family, who was with him during the filming; when infamous hoaxer Ray Wallace passed away, his family immediately released a statement saying that they hoaxed countless footprints and videos, yet in Le Serrec’s case, if he has passed away there’s been none of that adding to the overall strangeness of the story. Now again, Coleman and Heuvelmans stated that Le Serrec was a rather untrustworthy individual, and there are two ways to interpret this one can look at his claims and automatically dismiss them or that everything he experienced did, in fact, happen. The point of it truly is the following is that if a phenomenon is real, people of all sorts of merit can still encounter the unknown it just makes it more difficult to accept their claims.

In 2003 Le Serrec was said to still be living and currently residing in Asia. Once this was revealed, there was a sudden rush in attempting to interview him about the sea serpent, yet no interview currently has been conducted. I would love to hear his thoughts now since it's some 60 years later if he is still alive. Or if any of the others who were around with him during the photographing of the creature. While there’s currently no further investigation into this case, and for most researchers, the case seems to be closed, I think that there's enough ambiguity that would warrant a follow-up. Yet as with most older cases, chances are this will not be the case, but until then, we are left to ponder just whether or not this series of photos is authentic or not and it's a mystery that will last for countless years until an example is either captured or that other members of Serrec’s family finally come forward and claim either that it really is a hoax or that it’s the real deal.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species:

Location: Pacific Ocean, Stonehaven Bay, Hook Island, Whitsunday Islands, Queensland, Australia

Sighted: December 12, 1964

Works Cited:

Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology By Michael Newton

Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep By Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe By Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe

Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths By Darren Naish

In the Wake of the Sea Serpent By Bernard Heuvelmans

Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology Volume 2 By George Eberhart

Darren Naish "The amazing Hook Island sea monster photos, revisited" Scientific American November 23, 2013. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-amazing-hook-island-sea-monster-photos-revisited/. Accessed June 26, 2022.

Laura Rowton "5 Lake and Sea Monsters Supposedly Caught on Camera" The Paranormal Scholar. February 9, 2018. https://www.paranormalscholar.com/5-lake-sea-monsters/. Accessed July 8, 2022.

Key West Seaweed Beast

 Key West Seaweed Beast

By Cole Herrold

When it comes to bizarre entity encounters, there are tons of accounts, many of which come from the hay days of the 1800s and from the golden era of the 1950s-1990s. These accounts, which are as varied as the infamous Flatwoods Monster to the flapping monstrosity the Jersey Devil to the grinning enigmatic extraterrestrial Indrid Cold, it seems that these accounts are trapped in an era where we were more open to the mysteries of our world and the surrounding space as very rarely it seems that we have the completely unique and downright bizarre creatures and figures nowadays. These unique entities seemed to of completely disappeared and in their place, the mundane overly accounted creatures such as the Grays, Reptilians, Flying Humanoids, and even Bigfoot as the various subspecies such as the white-haired mud-covered Murphysboro Mud Monster or the Watermelon headed hair covered Momo seem to of either been bred out of extinction or simply those traits had been bred away. While it does seem that these bizarre entities are gone either through extinction or some other reason, every once in a while, a case does pop up of something that rarely has been recorded or has never been reported. This case which appeared on the Phantoms and Monsters website, is one such case.    

A Florida man, while vacationing on Key West, would experience one such bizarre entity in a biome that is very much open to holding something elusive, namely the Atlantic Ocean. The man was out bobbing in the ocean with several of his friends one warm day. The group was on a beach near the Southernmost point of the Key. After a long day of frolicking in the froth and foam there, his friends began to work their way out of the water and wandered onto the shore. The man was extremely far out yet did not yet realize the vast distance he was from the shore but did start to notice that the sun was beginning to dip down below the sky. The water began to get darker in color as the lack of the sun made the bluish-green liquid into an olive green, and the ocean seemed to come even more alive as those animals that were nocturnal and more active at night began to come to life. Realizing that it was probably best to leave the water, he began to slowly swim back towards the shore. The water was almost up to his chin, and as he scanned the beach, he noticed that it was abandoned; only his friends remained, and they were preoccupied with drying off and packing up their gear for their car.

The shore was 20 yards away as he moved slowly, working his way. The ocean, which was warm during the day, slowly began to become cooler, making the return to shore more refreshing. As he looked around him in the ever-expanding abyss, he noticed that not too far off a dark form below the water. This patch, he was unsure of its origin, thinking perhaps it could be some school of fish or some cloudy patch caused by the reflection from the sky. The man was disturbed by this form and proceeded to move a little bit quicker towards the shore. He kept looking back each time, noting that the dark form seemed to be heading straight towards him. As the dark object approached, he seemed to be able to tell that this form was not a school of fish or some atmospheric reflection but a large patch of seaweed. It was around the time that the water was up to his chest when the ocean began to push him towards the shore. This oceanic propellent, however, proved to be more of an issue for a man, for not only did it aid him, but it also helped the seaweed in coming closer until it seemed to wrap around the man.

The amorphous form seemed to encircle his body almost how one might imagine an amoeba preying on other single-celled organisms. It was at that moment the man felt a slimy and cold yet firm grip around his calve. He proceeded in slight terror to call out to his remaining two friends on the shore proclaiming, "Something is grabbing my leg!" his friends believing this is some comical joke, began exclaiming in a gleeful and joking fashion that he had better start swimming faster all the while laughing. The man did not want to yell for fear of agitating the strange Creepshow 2 meets Creature from the Haunted Sea esque blob. His mind raced as did his heart; he was petrified to cry out for fear that this leafy creature might, in turn, drag him below the frothing surf, never to be seen again. The man waited, yet the form and its cold, clammy grip seemed to continue; the man decided that he needed to get to shore. So, he proceeded in moving slowly towards the safety of the sandy shore, all the while trailing the bizarre beast much like a parent whose child has clung to their leg. He stared straight at the shore, only occasionally looking down to see if he could make out any clearer definition of the figure, which as it moved below the surf obscured anything other than the hulking seaweed-like mass which he assumed was the body. He could not, however, make out the color or texture of the creature and could only make out an approximate size that went unreported.

He would continue to move towards the shore, watching as the water slowly receded from his body; the figure still latched on, however, only losing its grip whenever he seemed to tense up during this encounter. As he got to an area where the water only reached to his waist, he figured enough was enough, and the man, in a spawn of agitation and fear proceeded in jumping up and down in an attempt to shake whatever was attached to his leg off. The creature soon let go as it either became annoyed or simply tired of its escort of the man and proceeded to hover a short distance away while he trudged at a breakneck pace to the shore. As he reached the shore, he looked back, half expecting the strange creature to rise up out of the water again, almost in a Creepshow 2 style effect. To his surprise, however, the dark form slowly began to move out towards the deeper water, moving against the tide and ultimately disappear into the briny depths. Thinking maybe he imagined the sentience of the seaweed, he looked around him but looking at driftwood and other debris which came towards the shore, he knew that this creatures' movements were maneuvered by itself.

The man proceeded to return to his hotel and later his home, not once speaking about the aquatic anomaly he had witnessed. Yet, it would not be short-lived. Soon on a chance day, he was out with his twin brother, and almost in a therapeutic rant, he came forward with his story. His brother, who also was living in Florida, stared at him for a moment and went on to follow up on his brother's encounter. The Twin would describe a similar encounter while on a relatively remote beach in Miami. The brother was in an almost identical situation; he was out in the deep ocean water up to his chin in the evening, and he too noticed a dark form below the waves. The form, however, as it approached the brother, was something that made the bizarre beast experienced in Key West look like a reject from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. The dark form reached out to the twin brother, and as it grabbed him, he could make out the form all too clear. The figure was pale and bloated; it had extremely large hands and a form that looked like a dead human. Seaweed was wrapped around the entity almost like some cthulhuian tentacles, and the creature seemed to of arisen from nowhere.  The brother managed to escape his grabber and make his way to the shore, never to see the entity ever again.

While the Florida man felt comforted knowing that he was not alone in experiencing such an entity, he was still affected by it. After experiencing this entity, the man began having anomalous effects when near the ocean. He has the habit of staring out at the water, and while he stares out at the crashing waves, an overwhelming sense of peacefulness fills his body. This feeling is not alone, for it comes paired with the sound of whale song that seems to come from the water, yet some of the areas where he hears the noise are in areas where such sounds should not be possible. The feelings and the noise give him the almost siren-like lull of wanting to jump overboard or run into the briny deep. He has experienced this on three cruises since his encounter and has managed to, even though the sensation extremely tempting, and alluring proceeded in staying on the ship and shore.

This organism is certainly bizarre and is, to me, a mish-mash of several cryptids and bizarre entities that have been reported through the years. The first that comes to mind is the Moss Man; its form is an assemblage of plant-like structures not unlike the Moss Man. Both creatures are found in Florida, which is another connection and something that may imply that they are either one and the same or of a similar origin. Another element that points to this is that while most of the Moss Man sightings did occur in forested areas, there was one beach Moss Man sighting. Perhaps Moss Man and the Key West Seaweed Beast are one and the same they are amphibiously moving from the aquatic biomes to the forested sections for different resources, be they nitrogen, oxygen, or some other mineral necessity.

The behavior of the creature also is similar to a creature reported in Indiana known as the Green Clawed Beast. The Green Clawed Beast is often depicted as a scaly hairy lizard-fish man, yet interestingly enough, an actual depiction of what the creature looks like was not recorded or able to be due to the darkness of the water. There was a feeling of a hairy and scaly sensation on the witness's leg as well the feeling of several fingers wrapped around tipped with what can be assumed are claws. Now there is a possibility that maybe the Green Clawed Beast and the Key West Seaweed Beast may be related to the feeling of something prickly or scaly in the Green Clawed Beast case could be another way of describing some irritation or texture of vegetation. Yet this is just speculation.

The Key West Seaweed Beast, while bearing a resemblance to other cryptids in some ways, does not answer how this creature could exist and, more importantly, what the creature could be. Currently, in nature, outside of the carnivorous plants, there are very few plants that one would think of as sentient, let alone mobile as the Key West Seaweed Beast seems to be, yet we can not rule it out. It is a possibility that a species of aquatic plant branched over into the realm of animal slightly, creating a species that has the same intelligence and capabilities as an aquatic organism while at the same time still relying on photosynthesis and nutrients from the surrounding environment to continue thriving. The fact that this is an aquatic organism makes this even more likely for who knows what could have evolved in some remote lagoon or abyss.

Another possibility is that this creature might not actually be some kind of vegetation or cross in between but a kind of protist. The way the creature moves and the way the witness felt a hand around him could be a way of describing a pseudopod. Organisms like amoebas are very amorphous. They seem to be undefined blobs that have unique limbs for feeding and moving. It could be the seaweed beast might be one of these and that the untrained eye of the man mistook the gelatinous body of a gargantuan amoeba for a seaweed creature. Now the only problem with this is that amoebas are microscopic organisms, none reaching the size that the seaweed beast was. So if this was something of that caliber, it would be the discovery of the century and something that would change microbiology forever.

Another possibility is that this creature could be a giant invertebrate, possibly some sort of jellyfish or hydrozoan. These species are very blob-like in form, and much like protists, do have extensions that could be used to grip or grab a potential food source. Now many of these species are extremely venomous or have painful stinging cells that, if this is the identity of the seaweed beast, would be more painful than just the sensation of being grabbed. Making this highly unlikely to be the case.

Skeptically speaking, and perhaps the most unfun possibility is that the man simply was wrapped up in seaweed. There's currently nothing in the countless known members of flora and fauna that appears and behaves like the creature in question. So, while one can speculate as to what the creature could be, there's also a glaring possibility that does need to be brought up. People can be incredibly observant to the point that they can retell entire accounts from memory or quote a film from front to back. People also, however, are extremely oblivious to the world around them; countless times, people walk out in front of moving cars because they do not see them or zone out. Another thing people are great at is interpreting things that are not connected or not there; our brains are our best asset and worst enemy all in one, and it's something we need as researchers to keep in mind when researching phenomena. Sometimes people mistake or miss certain things that reveal exactly what they are seeing; with this case, it's possible that the witness might have missed a change in the wave-making the beast move out to sea as opposed to coming to shore or that a certain segment of the seaweed was wrapped around his ankle or even some debris connected to say seaweed was the culprit. While I personally do not feel this to be the case, it is something that is a possibility.

This aquatic anomaly is something that can be speculated on quite easily, mainly since it does not have a definitive form. What the witness was able to describe makes one able to point out some very plausible answers based on organisms we already know exist in nature as well as those creatures that have been reported but are not currently accepted by science. To my current knowledge, there is nothing else like this creature that has been reported. One element that I had not covered is the creatures’ anomalous effects to those who interacts with it, mainly the bizarre auditory whale song and sense of jumping into the ocean. Is this creature some sort of entity that can implement or suggest ideas into either prey or experiencers' heads? Is this entity something not of a cryptozoological realm but something of a supernatural world such as perhaps some sort of water spirit? It's difficult to say since while there are similar tales with the Greek Sirens, which were creatures with the head of a woman and the body of a bird whose songs lured sailors to drowning, but this is very different from the entity reported in Key West. I'm not at liberty to say if this creature is something from the same cloth, so to speak, but it is an interesting parallel and one that hopefully is not as malicious.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Vegetation (possibly a kind of sentient seaweed), Giant invertebrate (organism could be some sort of colony organism like a jellyfish, hydrozoan, etc.), Unicellular organism (could be a giant variation of Amoeba or other Protist).

Location: Near the Southern Most Point, Key West, Florida

Sighted: Exact date unknown- account recorded in 2021.

Works Cited:

Strickler, Lon “Underwater 'Seaweed Creature' Grabs Witness' Calf in Key West, Florida” Phantoms and Monsters. June 19, 2021. https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2021/06/underwater-seaweed-creature-grabs.html. Accessed August 6, 2021.