Sea Monsters Unmasked: A Skeptical Classic

Some books become classics while others are unjustly forgotten. The skeptical movement tends not to have a very deep canon, and the most iconic skeptical book is probably Martin Gardner’s Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. But there are many older texts that are just as interesting and important that have fallen by the wayside. One of these is Henry Lee’s 1883 Sea Monsters Unmasked, a lavishly illustrated book produced for that year’s International Fisheries Exhibition in London.

Lee brilliantly dissects the myths of the kraken and the sea serpent with careful skeptical inquiry. A full century before Joe Nickell suggested that lake serpents could be attributed to groups of otters swimming in formation (see Real Life X-Files, 2001), Lee had already suggested that sea serpents could be better explained as pods of dolphins swimming in formation:

The supposed coils of the serpent’s body present exactly the appearance of eight porpoises following each other in line. This is a well-known habit of some of the smaller cetacea. They are often met with at sea thus proceeding in close single file, part only of their rotund forms being visible as they raise their backs above the surface of the water to inhale air through their “blow-holes.” Under these circum-stances they have been described by naturalists and seamen as resembling a long string of casks or buoys, often extending for sixty, eighty, or a hundred yards. This is just such a spectacle as that described by Olaus Magnus—his “long line of spherical convolutions,” and also as one reported to Pontoppidan as being descriptive of the sea-serpent.

Additionally, Lee also reported another sea monster story of a kind still current today. Let's start with a more modern example and then compare to Lee's. On April 25, 1977, a Japanese fishing boat pulled up a rotten carcass that many took for a plesiosaur off the coast of New Zealand. Although this story was debunked as merely a rotten shark carcass (the flesh of the snout falls off to produce the dinosaur-like false "head" and "neck"), to this day fringe believers, including some Christian textbook writers, claim this find as a real dinosaur and proof of the Genesis account of creation.

As it turns out, a very similar incident happened back in the nineteenth century, when a similar body was dragged from the water near the Orkneys in 1808. The monster was studied and samples of its bones preserved in two British museums.

1808 drawing of "sea serpent" closely resembling the rotted carcass of a shark with vertebrae and bones exposed. Note particularly the rotted head.

It looks convincing, and there is a savour of philosophy about it that might lull the suspicions of a doubting zoologist. What more could be required? We have accurate measurements and a sketch taken of the animal as it lay upon the shore, minute particulars of its outward form, characteristic portions of its skeleton preserved in well-known museums, and any amount of affidavits forthcoming from most respectable individuals if confirmation be required. And yet,

“’Tis true, ‘tis pity;
And pity ‘tis ‘tis true,”

the whole fabric of circumstances crumbled at the touch of science. When the two vertebræ in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons were examined by Sir Everard Home he pronounced them to be those of a great shark of the genus Selache, and as being un-distinguishable from those of the species called the “basking shark,” of which individuals from thirty to thirty-five feet in length have been from time to time captured or stranded on our coasts. Professor Owen has confirmed this. Any one who feels inclined to dispute the identification by this distinguished comparative anatomist of a bone which he has seen and handled can examine these vertebræ for himself. If they had not been preserved, this incident would have been cited for all time as among the most satisfactorily authenticated instances on record of the appearance of the sea-serpent. As it is, it furnishes a valuable warning of the necessity for the most careful scrutiny of the evidence of well-meaning persons to whom no intentional deception or exaggeration can be imputed.

Lee has many other fascinating skeptical investigations in his book, and it is well worth the read.

[Update: I forgot to mention that Lee's sequel, Sea Fables Explained, is much less useful, relying as it does on outdated speculation about the universal worship of Noah's Ark left over from Jacob Bryant's New System. Sea Fables is best taken with a large grain of salt.]