From Myth to Specimen: Sea Monsters, Giant Squids, Narwhals, and Cryptozoology

Humanity has been enamored and entertained by stories of sea monsters since ancient times. Stories range from the biblical account of Leviathan swallowing Jonah to an actual kraken documented in 2004 off the Bonin Islands. Greek mythology is replete with sea monsters such as mermaids, Cyclops, and Calypso found in Homer’s Odyssey. Pacific Northwest Native Americans’ oral traditions explain natural phenomena such as tsunamis as struggle between Thunderbird and Whale. Yesterday’s science fiction offered by Jules Verne in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, published in the nineteenth century, is today’s scientific fact. Yet there are creatures in the depths of the ocean that humans have yet to analyze, classify, and demystify.

The arts often offer representations of monsters that are intended to frighten the viewer. J. J. Cohen offers seven theses of monster theory that are helpful in defining the last word of this entry. One of these theories provides a definition of the Latin term monstrum as a divine omen, a portent, something supernatural and therefore beyond human understanding. This thesis finds validation in the story of Jonah in that the account admonishes hearers to do what a supernatural being bids or suffer the consequences until willing to do said bidding. (In 1946 a ship’s surgeon reported finding the badly mangled corpse of a sailor who had gone overboard in the dissected body of a sperm whale.) Another thesis states that monsters escape only to return again, much like the great white shark in Peter Benchley’s Jaws. Furthermore, Cohen believes monsters appeal to humans because we long for a similar ability to disappear into the depths and find release through identification with the monster. Cohen writes that monsters limit human exploration and therefore provide boundaries that keep us safe from unknown or threatening phenomena we cannot explain. Greek mythology primed the minds of explorers of the sixteenth- century literature to witness unusual sea life phenomena. Boundaries such as sea monsters and the unknown failed to deter sailors, who repeatedly challenged those boundaries during the Age of Exploration; scientists continue to challenge similar boundaries today through exploration, leading to another thesis—monsters require new definitions and new classifications.

In 1817, the Linnaean Society published a set of twenty-five criteria intended to glean information from eyewitnesses. The first of these criteria insists that the person reporting the sea monster must have seen the beast; in other words, hearsay is not a valid scientific way of reporting. Evaluating the reliability of the witness is paramount in determining whether or not the sighting actually occurred. By methodically asking the same questions of witnesses and comparing their answers, the Linnaean Society hoped to solve some of the mysteries of the deep. Physical evidence such as an atlatl carved around 200 CE by Pacific Northwest Native Americans sports a sea monster; petroglyphs in the area offer confirmation of sea monster sightings in the Puget Sound. An eyewitness off Queen Charlotte Island confirmed this archaeological evidence in 1897, and in 1932 an officer who worked for the Provincial Archives of British Columbia saw a similar creature. Due to the officer’s background and public standing, the account was considered a genuine report and not some attention-grabbing stunt. When a similar creature was sighted again in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in 1969, scientists determined that the monster was perhaps a Stellar’s sea cow or an oarfish—a creature already dissected by marine biologists. Often such sightings are categorized as cryptozoological phenomena—cryptozoology defined as the lore of hidden animals. However, supposedly reliable witnesses and even photographic evidence can be used to perpetuate a hoax. A 1934 photograph of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster turned out to be a fraud. Without tangible evidence, verification and authentication of sea monster sightings continue to be a challenge.

The kraken, or what is commonly known today as the giant squid, offers an example of yesterday’s lore corroborated as today’s scientific fact. Jules Verne’s description of the giant squid that attacked the Nautilus is reminiscent of Aristotle’s description of a giant squid in his Naturalis Historia, as well as eyewitness reports by sailors off the coast of Angola in 1802. Marine biologist Richard Ellis notes that the first of the beached giant squids was discovered in Iceland in 1639; beachcombers found another specimen on the shore of Dingle Bay, Ireland, in 1673. Tsunemi Kubodera filmed the giant squid for Japan’s National Science Museum in 2004. In 2006, Kubodera’s team hauled aboard a 24-foot squid off the island of Chichiyima, which allowed marine biologists a closer examination of a live specimen. Twenty-first-century scientific methods take some of the mystery out of sea monsters, but in the case of the giant squid—which can reach lengths of 60 feet and live as deep as 630 meters—much of the mystery remains.

Unicorn of the Sea. Known as the “unicorn of the sea,” the narwhal is found in small numbers exclusively in small areas of the Arctic and is a relative of the beluga whale. Narwhals are known for their unique, spiraled tusk that is an elongated canine (in males) that can grow up to 10 feet in length. This tusk was recently discovered to be a mechanism to help catch their prey of halibut and cod. Among the greatest threats to these whales is the danger of suffocating under thick patches of ice during the winter months, which can happen if sudden wind shifts close openings in the sea ice while the whales dive to feed on shrimp and squid. This once-seasonal threat is now becoming prevalent even in summer months, as changes related to a warming climate have shifted patterns of sea ice freeze to the detriment of the narwhal. Laura G. Buschmann

Combining Cohen’s monster theories and Ellis’s speculations as to why people continue to be captivated by sea monsters, we are reminded of our own vulnerability. Cohen draws attention to the fact that monsters escape only to return again, as do giant squid and great white sharks. But in today’s world of dying species and extinction, are sea monsters perhaps a bellwether of our own future? Columbus came to the conclusion that the manatees he sighted when he sailed into the Caribbean were the mermaids of sailing lore and mythology. Manatees were listed as an endangered species in 1967 and have only recently, through vigorous conservation efforts, been removed from that list by US Fish and Wildlife Service. Therefore, the push is on to demystify sea monsters and to discover what other creatures might abide in the depths and analyze the impact our human species is having on humanity’s original home—the sea.

FURTHER READING: Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed. 1996. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: Regents of the University of Minnesota.

Ellis, Richard. 2006. Monsters of the Sea. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 372.

LeBlond, Paul H. 1993. “Sea Serpents of the Pacific Northwest.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 43 (4): 44-51.