The oarfish hypothesis is a good one but a couple years ago reading the report below and doing some follow up reading I think what the Daedalus encountered was a Sei whale which are slender and usually at least fifty feet in length dark grey in colour mainly...These animals can skim feed and move as witnessed, this magnificent creature should be considered a very good possibility...
The 1848 ‘Enormous Serpent’ of the Daedalus Identified
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Hi Nivek, and thanks for the reply buddy.
And yes I've seen that "explanation" [ aka...'possibility-masquerading-as-a-case-breaker'] before, and this is one of those scenarios in which i'm always afraid of becoming known as one of those ignoble type of anti-prosaic-explanation type of guys that would argue that black is white rather than accept 'a reasonable explanation' from someone that has letters after his/her name. ... Which I can assure you I am not!, if the evidence fits the explanation then I will happily accept and be grateful for the enlightenment. But if not... then I will not capitulate my own impression of the data. And this instance is one of those where I think that the "expert" from CSI has fudged his way through most of the contradictory testimony from the actual witnesses in order to make his own conclusions fit the bill, so to speak. [which in my experience is the general practice of that site ... don't get me wrong, sometimes I agree with their conclusions to certain cases... but more often I find their unreasonable reliance on the old cherry-picking of testimony and their incessant practice of 'appealing to authority' laughable,... in a disbelieving kind of way.]
ie... I think it stands to reason that there are many aspects of the original testimony that have to be brushed aside, diluted or just ignored for this anomalous creature that was witnessed by the crew of the Daedalus one hundred and seventy years ago to be conclusively identified as being 'a twenty minute encounter with a Sei Whale' which contrary to factoid number 1 was not a mysterious and unknown commodity at the time. .... Sei Whales just as all large whales had been hunted by whaling ships of all countries since man was able to take to the sea with harpoons a very long time before the Daedalus was built! .. The fact is that not many of the really big whales were ever caught before the invention of the explosive harpoons later on in that century [from 1885 onwards 14,295 Sei Whales were taken].
...My point here being, that rather than being ignorant to the sight of such a whale , the chances art that such salty seamen as was the commanders and crew of this grand old frigate would have been able to identify a whale ... who knows perhaps even if not directly , some of the crew may even had whaling connections? ..And directly from the chief officer on watch Lt Drummond...
It was going at the rate of perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour, and when nearest, was perhaps one hundred yards distant. In fact it gave one quite the idea of a large snake or eel. No one in the ship has ever seen anything similar, so it is at least extraordinary!
The next fact to be ignored or brushed aside being the contemporary testimony is that of the 'on-the-scene' witnesses description of the 'creature'... such as the glaringly obvious anomaly in the 'Galbraith cast iron explanation' which is that all on-site testimony was that the creature was in fact ..
"a dark brown colour, and beneath the under jaw a brownish white"!
... and in every reference book that I've seen about the description of the Sei Whale is that it is ..
steel grey with irregular light grey to white markings on the ventral surface
or alternatively
a Dark bluish-grey with a lighter underside.
and never the dark brown colour that glares out of the testimony. ... and what about the bell ringing description that the actual witnesses gave that set my sights on the 'Oarfish'? ... that of course along with the extreme length [as opposed to bulk] ... snakelike as attested to... there is for me at least, the striking undilutable fact that the witnesses reported that the creature had ..
" something like a mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back."
...[erm... something like that on the Oarfish perhaps?] ... There is probably more to be said about the possibility of errors in Galbraith's suppositions [nay... insistences] but these few are what come of the top of my head, and i'm not even saying that his "explanation" is definitely wrong and that my own notion is correct, but I am [as you probably already know] of the disposition that I just cannot stand by while others accept a 'possibly-flawed explanation' of the true nature of a 'real life mystery' without opening my big mouth! lol.
...And for the sake of even handed appraisal of competing theories I searched the net for examples that might bolster Mr Galbraith's supposition and the closest that I could genuinely come up with was this YT video of the Sei Whale passing close to a boat in the middle of the ocean....
.... and still find it hard to believe that , that crew of salty old seamen wouldn't have recognised the creature to be a whale of some kind, and not a "snake-like serpent with a horses mane!
...Alternatively, I would like to remind any open minded folk that the 'Oarfish explanation' that I champion is by no means a new theory. It was proposed long ago near the time of this incident and many other "Sea Serpent" reports back in the 19th century by the likes of British zoologist Dr Andrew Smith who voiced what remains today a popular consensus among the scientific community in
The Times newspaper of London, which was published by it on 15 June 1877 when he confidently asserted:
"I am, as a zoologist, fully convinced that very many of the reported appearances of sea-serpents are explicable on the supposition that giant tape-fish [i.e. giant oarfishes] – of the existence of which no reasonable doubt can be entertained – have been seen."
... and reprinted this picture from
Engraving of Bermuda's Hungary Bay giant oarfish, sketched by W.D. Munro for 3 March 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly (public domain)
Engraving of Bermuda's Hungary Bay giant oarfish, sketched by W.D. Munro for 3 March 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly
In an 1860’s article, Matthew Jones esq. speaks of a creature captured at Bermuda’s own Hungary Bay. Unsure of its origins, Jones announces it as “not undeserving of being styled a member of the sea serpent family.” This specimen would later be revealed to be the impressive giant oarfish (Regalecus glesne), a deep sea fish thought to be the origin of many sea serpent tales, possibly due to its habit of surfacing when close to death.
FROM BERMUDA.; More of the
Myth or Fact: Oarfish Sea Serpent?
Sei Whale
Lol that was a long winded way of saying that I disagree with the certainty of Mr. Galbraith's "Case Closed" assertion in this ancient incident I know mate. ... And he may still be right....But the crux is that I have a bugbear about these CSI "Cut n' Dried Closed Cases!" when for me at least, ... they are not!
Cheers Buddy.