The Mystery of the Gloucester Sea Serpent

 I remember the time when one is sitting by the sea on a calm day, watching the waves, and then seeing something odd in the water. This is exactly what happened to many people in Gloucester, Massachusetts, over 200 years ago. They saw what they thought was a sea serpent – a creature that they could only imagine they read in story books. This event is now considered to be one of the most famous sea serpent sightings in the history. 

 

 The First Sighting 

 The event of the sea serpent of Gloucester started in August 1817. One fine day in summer, a number of fishermen were out at sea when they saw something strange in the water. At first they believed it was just a large piece of timber that was adrift on the sea. But then, it started to move. It was a long creature, very long indeed, or at least according to some it could reach up to 100 feet in length. It was gliding through the water and making circles and spirals. The fishermen were surprised and scared at the same time. 

 

 More Sightings 

 Word spread and many people came to see the sea serpent. In the next one month people claimed to have seen the strange creature hundreds of them. Some said it had a head of a snake, big eyes, and mouth filled with big sharp teeth. Some of them said that it had a succession of humps along its back like a large caterpillar swimming in the water. It was fast, at times it would submerge and you would see it pop up on the other side. 

 

 Everyone could see the sea serpent, from fishermen and sailors to local authorities, and other people. Their reports were all very similar, it was impossible to just laugh off the sightings as some figment of their imagination. 

 

 Scientific Interest 

 The Gloucester sea serpent also attracted the attention of the scientists. To the people of the time, the notion of creatures that exist in the sea was not as unbelievable as it may appear to the modern audience. The sea was still considered to be mysterious and people still thought that there must be new species of animals in the sea.

Some members of Linnaean Society of New England thought it wise to embark on a research to determine the truth. They tried to question the witnesses and gather as many reports as they could to look for something. But they could not get any concrete evidence of the sea serpent in the form of a body. Nobody had photographed the beast, captured it, or discovered any carcasses. 

 

 Theories and Explanations 

 With no actual proof, numerous hypotheses were made as to what the Gloucester sea serpent might have been. Some people believed it could be a huge snake or a massive eel. Some speculated that it could be some kind of whale or seals swimming in a line to give the impression of one long entity. 

 

 Another theory that was common was that it was a practical joke, a prank pulled by some smart people to get people’s attention. However, this did not seem very probable due to the number of credible witnesses and the fact that their accounts were quite similar. 

 

 Gloucester sea serpent: a brief history 

 The mystery of the Gloucester sea serpent has not been solved to this day. To this day, people are interested in what they saw. Was it a real creature, an undiscovered species that for one reason or another remained beyond the reach of man’s technology? Or was it a confusion of one species for the other, where normal sea creatures were mistaken for something magical? 

 

 That, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, is uncertain. Gloucester sea serpent is an indication that there is so much to discover about our world particularly the oceans which are so deep and large. Regardless of whether it is true or not, it has remained a source of fascination to people and encouraged them to seek to know the mysteries of the sea.