Monstrum

Just off the coast of Washington and British Columbia lives an elusive monster.

With a long serpentine body, sharp teeth, and a humped back, the prolific cryptid Cadborosaurus, or "Caddy" for short, is spotted with more frequency than their sea serpent cousins across the globe.

Sea serpents, sounds like something from an antiquated map or bestiary, right?

But there are people who swear up and down that some version of this monster inhabits the waters of the Pacific.

Without conclusive proof of a Caddy, why do we keep seeing them?

[triumphant upbeat music] I'm Dr. Emily Zarka, and this is "Monstrum."

Descriptions of Caddy generally remain consistent.

There's a long serpentine body with a scaly humped back, needle-like teeth, whiskers, and a fluke resembling that of a whale.

Many eyewitnesses say the monster's head looks like a horse.

The other thing that helps this particular sea serpent stand out, the massive popularity and news media attention.

Reports of sea serpents in North American waters began in the early 19th century newspapers.

On August 26th, 1817, the Connecticut Courant ran an article titled "A Sea Serpent" that told of a number of eyewitnesses in Massachusetts who saw a large serpent-like creature raise a horse-like or dog-like head in the Atlantic Ocean.

The article notes that while existence of sea serpents is contested, there are hundreds who can testify to the existence of some creature of a very uncommon bulk and form and such as was never before seen on our coast.

When foreign presses started printing about the sightings, "Caddy" gained international attention.

In 1822, the creature was reported as captured.

It supposedly took at least five boats to harpoon and when skinned and gutted revealed no entrails, no heart, but a liver which produced barrels of oil.

With reports of sea serpents and other marine monsters popping up with relative frequency, naturalists publicly weighed in on the reputed existence of such creatures, trying to dispel the rumors.

Famous English biologist and paleontologist Richard Owen declared sea serpents to be non-existent.

He claimed eyewitness accounts could be attributed to misidentified sea lions, seals, or in one case a ribbonfish.

The weekly humor and satire magazine Punch quickly dubbed Owen the "Killer of the Sea Serpent."

Famous naturalists Charles Darwin and Franc Buckland also didn't think they were real and supported Owen's misidentification theory.

Yet the stories kept coming.

To better understand the continued presence of North America's seafaring serpent creature, we need to look at the history of other sea serpents.

The modern understanding of the sea serpent, at least in the Western world, is generally influenced by the Greek ketos or sea monster who are often depicted with serpentine bodies and marine traits like spines, a fish tail, and frontal fins or flippers.

Their presence is recorded in Greek texts going back to at least the first millennium BCE.

Given their role in popular myths like the stories of Heracles and Perseus and Andromeda, images of ketos frequently adorned Greek art and artifacts.

But there are a lot of other cultures, both ancient and modern, that feature snake-like sea monsters.

There's the mother of Babylonian monsters, Tiamat, the Midgarden-circling Jormungandr of Nordic myth, and the Leviathan of Judeo-Christian fame.

The supernatural shape-shifting three-headed Sisiutl is of great importance to the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples.

And don't forget the Ikuchi and Mizuchi of Japan.

And these are just a few of the many examples out there, not even including freshwater incarnations like our dear friend Nessie.

Sea serpents pop up in legends, myths, and art of cultures all over.

What makes the Cadborosaurus special?

Well, for one, they are uniquely harmless.

They've been seen swimming, lifting their head or tail out of the water, and even scratching their backs on barnacle-laden rocks.

But there has never been a report of a Caddy harming anyone.

The first instance of a Pacific Northwest Caddy appearing in popular media that I could find was in November, 1911.

The article details the discovery of sea serpent remains that washed ashore off the coast of Vancouver on Katala Island.

Described as semi-fish and semi-serpent, the head of the 16 foot long corpse bore coarse brown hair.

Its jaws held inch-like teeth shaped like miniature saws.

Reportedly its remains were shipped to the Smithsonian.

And why, yes, intrepid audience, you better believe I contacted the National Museum of Natural History to track those remains down.

I'm still waiting for an answer.

Beginning in September, 1913, we see reports that a Pacific Northwest sea serpent was slain.

According to the article, this 20-foot long creature seized a fishing canoe in Skidegate and was killed with a large hunting knife.

Twenty years later, a particular sighting would become the backbone of the Caddy narrative.

In 1933, three eyewitnesses came forward to say they saw an 80-foot long, 20-foot thick sea serpent creature in Cadboro Bay.

A long shaggy-haired head rose outta the water while its body made monstrous undulations.

It then proceeded to scratch its head on the barnacle-covered rocks nearby.

Just a few days later, papers published an article recounting other sea serpent sightings, this time from the Gulf of Georgia and British Columbia.

F. W. Kemp stated that in 1932, he and his family saw huge bluish green coils coming outta the water.

The creature raised its head which appeared thicker than its body before quickly swimming away, its dorsal fin-like tail moving like a propeller.

The second eyewitness, Major Langley, claimed that in 1933, he and his wife saw a huge domed object rise from the water after hearing a loud snort followed by a hiss.

Langley insisted it wasn't a whale, but a lot of people were skeptical.

Once this narrative was introduced, other reports poured in of a camel-faced sea serpent between 40 to 80 feet in length, happily scratching its back on rocks.

However, Seattle fishermen refuted the accounts saying that the eyewitnesses likely saw a giant conger eel.

Nevertheless, a few days later, a hunting expedition was sent to photograph and kill the monster.

They returned empty-handed.

The next year, a Cadborosaurus dubbed Amiable Amy emerged from the depths of the waters of Vancouver Island just to steal the spoils of a few duck hunters who swore to the legitimacy of their experience in front of a judge.

Then there was Jorda.

In 1934, H. Sunderstrom turned in the remains of an unknown sea creature to the scientists of the Dominion Fisheries Experimental Station.

Believed to be one of the three sea serpents in the British Columbia area, it was 30 feet long with rough skin, partially covered by hair in some spots and spikes or quills in others.

The body sported four cartilagenous fins or flipper-like appendages, and the only bone that remained of the corpse was the backbone.

Newspapers ran claims that speculated the creature was some kind of ancient marine reptile like the ichthyosaurus that had somehow managed to survive millennia.

In 1937, physical evidence of a so-called Cadborosaurus was found in the belly of a sperm whale.

Whalers who hauled up the animal photographed what appears to be the mostly skeletal remains of a long serpent-like creature with a horse-like head.

The remains have of course been lost.

A living juvenile Cadborosaurus is said to have been captured as recently as the late 1960s.

Certified master mariner William Hagelund claims that he caught a juvenile Caddy, but released it back into the water.

Some scientists today believe what Hagelund caught was a bay pipefish.

There are many different theories out there that attempt to explain the numerous repeated sightings of Cadborosaurus and their fellow modern sea serpents.

Let's go through the options.

An eel seems like an obvious choice, but no species is large enough to explain most sightings.

And saltwater eels very, very rarely come close to the surface of the deep ocean.

Maybe a misidentification of a whale, dolphin, or porpoise.

Possible, especially if it was a rare species or engaging in unusual behavior.

Some scholars proposed that the back of a fast-moving whale shark or giant whale swimming in a straight line could account for the snake-like appearance of reported sea serpents or maybe one got tangled in floating sea debris that made it appear more snake-like.

A line of jumping dolphins or a pod of seals or sea lions could be mistaken for a single undulating creature, especially from a distance, it's easy to assume the swimming mammals are connected underwater and make up one creature.

There is also another important thing to note.

Due to force perspective, a series of objects at a distance on the ocean appears as a straight line when viewed from near sea level.

In the early 2000s, a handful of scientists analyzed 18th century written reports based on a series of sea serpent sightings off the coast of Greenland.

Yeah, the ones that produced this familiar and frankly foundational sea serpent illustration, although it really looks nothing like what the eyewitness accounts described.

They deduced that witnesses likely saw a whale missing its tail flukes, probably an Atlantic gray whale or a humpback, either that or more than one male whale, one of whom was particularly excited.

Although the scientists make it a point to note in their discussion that they are not suggesting all sea serpent sightings can be attributed to aroused male whales.

People were seeing something.

It's just unlikely that all of the accounts can be attributed to the same thing.

All of the proposed explanations still haven't stopped witnesses from swearing they encountered some kind of sea serpent.

And when do we see the most recent spike in Cadborosaurus' popularity?

The turn of the 21st century when web search engines rose in prominence.

Cryptozoology and folklore saw revived public interest at this time too, largely because more people had access to more information and other believers, especially in niche subjects.

Today, the efforts of Caddyscan, an organization dedicated to providing physical evidence of the creatures and the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, along with other Caddy enthusiasts collect photo and video evidence and eyewitness testimony to validate the cryptid's existence, with evidence posted online for consideration.

Toward the end of his life, the editor of the Victoria Daily Times, Archie Wills, admitted he wanted to run more lighthearted stories in the news.

Caddy was a perfect fit and an effective distraction from the Great Depression and rising political tensions in Europe.

That's not to say that we can attribute every modern eye witness account of a sea serpent to global tragedy, but it is interesting to consider how they seem to gain additional media and popular attention during these times.

Mammals are biologically programmed to be wary of snakes.

Used as symbols in mythology, they're both feared and revered, associated intimately with life, death, and rebirth.

A sea serpent carries the weight of these associations and places the snake in an environment also connected with fear and reverence, the ocean.

It's a double whammy we can't seem to shake.

When a monster appears serpentine, they often take on an intrinsic notoriety.

Sea monsters aren't just about danger or some kind of prophetic sign.

Caddy shows us that.

They're inherently about curiosity and astonishment at the many marvels of nature, which is sometimes a much needed escape.

Instead of itch-theo-- ichthyosaurus?

Ichthyosaurus, icky.

Etchosaurus like Etch A Sketch?

It's all wrong?

Aroused male whales-- sentences I never thought I'd have to say in my life.